DIY and the Dead Fly Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Despite my insistence that I'm not a DIY type of girl, I find myself doing a lot of things for this wedding myself. Among my projects is the Martha Stewart flower pillow.

I love this pillow, and from the moment I saw it I knew I wanted one for my wedding! I have a little sewing experience and this seemed like a project I could do.

For inspiration, I studied carefully the diagrams and tutorial over at Martha Stewart, which boasts this beautiful example:

Then I also read the more explicit tutorial of Weddingbee blogger "Mrs. Perfume," whose mother helped her with this beautiful one:

I picked up some remnant fabric at Joann's to practice with, and set to work with my little sewing kit. Here was some of my inspiration while I worked:

Oh yes, Michael provides the perfect sewing music.

First, I cut out those ovals just as Martha described: ovals with straight sides. FH pointed out that they look a lot like my little mouse, so I put them side by side. Twins!

Then, I got my sewing kit and went to work, following all the directions. I cut my little ovals out, and instead of pinching them with wire, I stitched them through the middle.

Then I started sewing them together. But I noticed something odd. Where the directions said there should be no gaps, there were plenty. And this didn't look like a flower at all! It was a weird, floppy thing. I tossed it onto my keyboard and noticed that it looked.... like a dead fly!

FH came over to see, and when I described it to him he immediately began holding it through the air, buzzing around with it. Guys!

Anyway, I quickly saw what my problem was: the ovals were too straight and too long. They really need to be more like circles. Why doesn't Martha say this? Wait, who am I kidding?! It wouldn't be a Martha project without some frustration.

So I cut out some new ovals.

These were quite a bit smaller (and the flower tends to get smaller as you add petals to it), so it was harder to sew. Still, there was an instant improvement.

And for good measure, we checked -- it's cat-approved!