Here we sew again!

A little applique action

A little closer up for detail

This turned out so cute, I just had to share! I made this pillow for a birthday party last week my kids went to. Money has been extremely tight (not that I'm complaining at all) and this has forced me to be a little more creative. With a 5 dollar budget for a present getting something "good" is impossible though, right? Au contraire mon ami! This stinkin' cute pillow only cost 5 bucks in material and about an hour to complete. Here's how I did it!:

I scoped the clearance section at Ross (gotta love Ross!) for an inexpensive pillow with a removable case. I found this one for 3.99. "Taite" loves sharks and was having a shark themed party, so the variegated blue and white striping was perfect for water. Next I hopped on over to Michael's and picked up 3 sheets of felt in charcoal, white, and red for 29 cents each. When I got home I drew the letters on the red felt with a Sharpie and cut them out. I knew I wanted a Jaws-like shark and drew and cut out a head (think upside-down U) and a fin (just a long triangle). I wanted the teeth to stand up and be loose. I took the red and the white and cut out a circle for the mouth (I just layered them together to be the same size). I then took the white circle and folded it in half and started cutting zigzag "teeth" in a semi-circle (being careful to not cut the entire white circle in half). Once I was done with the cutting of the felt I got to work sticking the shapes and letter down to my pillow.
Did I mention that felt is the easiest material to applique? It's so true! If you use a lighter weight fabric you have to iron on your fusible webbing (wonder under) to the material and the pillow. This prevents bunching and wrinkling of the fabric. With felt I just eliminate that step and I just tack my letters and shapes down with a little Quick Dry Tacky Glue. Felt won't bunch or wrinkle over time and as long as you stitch it down tight, it'll stay put too! Since this is a pillow for a little guy I knew it was bound to loved a little hard...I stitched it down good! ;0)
After I finished sticking the shapes and letters down (I let it dry for about an hour) I got out some matching yarn and my yarn needle that I already had. I stitched around the shark and around the mouth with a blanket stitch. I had glued down two small circles for the eyes and I knotted and stitched in "pupils". I loved the texture this provided, but it was time consuming. The case was removable, but it overlapped in the back like a sham and this made machine stitching tricky. I finally turned the case inside out and the flaps folded over the front instead. This made it so I could machine stitch the letters on. I just pushed the flaps out of the way and stitched in a little window (think like embroidering in an embroidery hoop).
Super inexpensive and not very much time to make and I guess he loved it! His Mom said he was carrying it around with him. I love it!