I thought I would share the pillows that are currently parked on the living room sofa. The Holidays for me are all about sharing, filling your home with the sentimental journey. Of the lives shared within the walls. Home! So with that in mind my home is filled with sentiment, and things carefully placed to remind me of who I came from, the people we have so lovingly created and the stew that creates family and home.

These pillows are part of that. While breaking down my parent’s family home, I came across a skirt of my mom’s. I remembered this skirt from childhood Christmas’ past, and knew I would not part with it. This skirt was heavy. An upholstery weight cut velvet made when fabric was beautiful in every way. The depth of color, the contrast and shading from beige to gold. The richness of the greens and corals. To touch this fabric you immediately feel the quality, the peaks and valleys, the softness of the velvet. It hits you with all your senses. Well maybe just me!

I brought the skirt home and tucked it in a drawer for someday. I knew it would never be a skirt again. My mother was tiny at this point and much shorter than myself. So in the drawer it sat, and I would occasionally take it out, fondle it and try and imagine it in my life. Back in the drawer it would go for another season because it just felt too fancy for me.

While preparing to deck the halls this year, I had an aha moment. What if they became Christmas pillows. Taken out just for the holiday. Removing the skirt I now looked at it from a fabric standpoint. The skirt had only one seem, certainly a plus for me. Allowing me enough to get 2 matching pillow fronts from the skirt.

What was so interesting to me was the skirts construction. My mom was notorious for finding beautiful pieces of anything and using them in creative ways. A skirt that I always thought had to have been from some fancy designer, proved to be just the opposite. The one seam in the back, with a few simple pleats going into a waistband lined with grosgrain ribbon on the inside. Hmm! Ok, well a waistband doubled over in this very heavy bulky fabric would be cumbersome. Then I looked at the zipper construction. Clearly this skirt was handmade, not the fancy designer label I expected. But who made it? I was her seamstress, for all her interesting and unusual ideas. Mom did not sew, could not put in a zipper, and the hem construction wasn’t much better.

When I was 13 mom and dad bought me a sewing machine for Christmas, so I could learn to make my own clothes. A tall girl back in the day, everything was way too short. I look back now and I realize the reason the sewing machine showed up that Christmas, was so I could be her private creative seamstress. And there would be a machine in the house that she could use too. She could sew a straight seam, hem a skirt and make curtains but follow a pattern? No way. Besides, her creative brain was too big for the mundane, of putting pieces together and creating a piece of clothing. That she left for me. She would decide she needed something new for a party, and she would enlist me with no pattern to create a skirt for her. This skirt was very much of that ilk. A style I was so familiar with. But, I didn’t make this. Well it’s a puzzle.

Back to the pillows. I removed all the stitching, the zipper, waistband, and seam tape, pressed it and started to map out my pillows. I didn’t want to waist an inch of this fabric. I determined the pillows would be cut to 22″ so I could get two of the same repeat out of it. Then I had to face the next problem. What was I going to use on the back. I checked my stash first but, the green I had was not the right green for this fabric. This fabric needed to be either wool or velvet. Not a substitute but the real deal. Where was I going to find fabric in Omaha.

With JoAnn gone, we no longer have any fabric stores. Not that JoAnn would have had anything worthy of this cut velvet. We have wonderful quilt shops but, they specialize in cotton fabric and I knew that would not work. Then I remembered I had seen some wool in Gretna at the Quilted Moose. Could they be my savior? I hopped in the car and headed down to Gretna with fabric in hand. Walking over to the wool area I was disheartened, as all the wool was either not the right color, pattern, or too loosely woven. I almost gave up. Walked thru some of the other fabrics, and walked back to the wool. And there it was. Why didn’t I see this before. Hmm could this work? Wool flannel coating fabric. Tightly woven, heavy enough but, could I make the color work? I just wasn’t sure. I asked the clerk if I could take it outside to get a truer sense of the color. It didn’t take long. Yea this will work.

Home now, I got the Bernina out, and in a couple of hours I had the pillows done. I love to make pillows. They are quick and easy to make and I have made some fun ones, for both clients and myself over the years. But these pillows are so special. is it because of the sentiment and every time I look at them, I see mom wearing her skirt? I don’t know, but these are my favorite pillows ever, and so, I will love them forever. Even on my humble canvas slipcovered sofa!

What is your favorite sentimental holiday trigger? The one that makes you smile every time you look at it. I would love to know.

Thanks for stopping

Shelley