Wednesday, October 25, 2023

~ Sawdust Pillows and NEW CROSS STITCH DESIGNS! ~

 
 Hello Friends & Folk!
...happy Wednesday to us all!

it's that strange season between Halloween & the Winter Holidays,
but I am thinking ahead for finishes of my needlework projects...

and my very favorite finish is making sawdust pillows!

here is a brief picture walk of how I make mine, and at the bottom you will see the models for my new cross stitch patterns which are available now in my Etsy shop...
PDF & Mailed versions available.

and on with the not-so fancy show ~

here you can see that I've stitched my project into a pillow...
I stitch them all the way around, then slit the backing fabric and turn them right-sides-out.

I use our organic sawdust that Peter gives me from his sawmill,
{{but we also offer it in our Etsy shop too}}

I stuff my pillow pretty firmly with the sawdust, as it will 'crush' down a bit as you're stuffing...
I also use a wooden chopstick to help get the sawdust into the corners.

I make patches to cover the slits, out of any kind of scrap fabric I have...in this case I'm using scrap osnaburg that was leftover from other projects.
If you click on the photo to enlarge, you'll see that I have used the exact same 'pillow' technique by stitching the two fabrics together all the way around, cutting a slit and turning right sides out.....
 

but before I sew the patch on, I will use doubled-thread to stitch the slit closed...
I don't pull too tightly on my stitches, as I do not like 'puckers' LOL


once I've closed the slit, I'll place the patch that I've made on top of that, but make sure to place it so the slit is facing down so it won't be seen...


now I can whip-stitch the patch on using small stitches...
again I never pull too tightly and I'm not concerned if my stitches are uneven or wonky.


After all the patches are on, I use a fine line Sharpie pen in black ink to write the name of the design, and the year I made it....of course you can add any wording you'd like that is memorable to you :)


and here are the fronts of the pillows shown above ~
my newest, super-simple & quick little Winter/Holiday themed designs
and they are {l-r}
 'Holly Jolly', 'Cinder Klaus' & 'Xmas Squirrels'


They are all stitched using DMC threads...
one strand of floss over two threads...
but, in this case I didn't stitch on LINEN... these are stitched on primitively-stained
OSNABURG cloth ~ which is kinda-sorta close to a 36ct linen when stitched over 2 threads.

I stained my OSNABURG with walnut dye
and just LOVE the old-looking patina of the cloth/color/finish combo!!

If you have never cross stitched on OSNABURG before, I highly recommend you trying it!!


↓  Holly Jolly's finished pillow size is approx. 5" x 5" ↓



↓  Cinder Klaus' finished pillow size is approx. 3" x 4-3/4" !!!  ↓


and
↓   Xmas Squirrels' finished pillow size is approx. 4" x 5-3/4"  ↓
 
 
well I hope I haven't bored you to tears...
~ just thought I would share how I do 'things'

thanks for tuning in!

post script: you can visit my ETSY shop by clicking on any of the thumbnails
in my Etsy Pocket Shop under the header at the top of this blog,

 
Blessings from the Farm
 ~ Lori
written by on