Tuesday, January 27, 2009

doilies, drapes, and a USA flag pillow

Currently I am in the crafting mood and have been enjoying planning and creating things for our home and for gifts. I had finished a doily for a Christmas present back in December for and extra gift "just in case!" I enjoyed making it so much that I found myself wanting to crochet some more doilies. A visit to a friend's house gave me the desire to crochet smaller doilies and frame them to give them the antique look. I have yet to get frames, but I have found dozens of small and antique looking doily patterns. The vintage style will look just wonderful on the wall and in frames. All I have to do is glue some scrap material on top of the cardboard backing of a frame and spray a fixative to the material where I will place my doily. So far I have completed three doilies and am nearly done on a fourth one. Two of these are small enough for framing.

Living in an old apartment complex has proven cold on winter days when the cold fronts come through so Nathan and I have been trying to find ways to make it warmer. Next after buying a propane heater we found a fleece blanket to use for a drape next to my side of the bed over the nearest window. Nathan was going to tape it, but I refused. Instead, folded the fleece down five inches and used my sewing machine to make a "pocket." I hung it on a metal curtain rod over my window, which currently has an air leak. The blanket had only cost us 3.79 at walmart. The next day Nathan and I returned to wal mart to get four red blankets and found that they were down to $2! I sewed them into drapes and had them hung that very night. The look of the red wine drapes was magnificent to our eyes. I have plans of adding lace edging to the bottom and at the sewn seam. Because we liked the results, we went yet another day and picked up four more fleece blankets. two blue, one red, and one tan blanket (the color of our original drape that was for my window). I had them all sewn and hung the next day. The blue for our guest bedroom, the tan for the dining room, and the extra red for our bathroom. Already I have noticed a huge difference in the temperature indoors. I have not had to use the propane heater, but only four days.

Friday, after I had help hanging the drapes in the dining room, I decided I wasn't done sewing and wanted more to do. I remembered I wanted to make a USA flag pillow for our guest bedroom, which is our red, white, and blue room. I already had a small hand flag I had found for a quarter at a thrift store in Cashiers. I used a stitch ripper to take off the white loop that kept it to the plastic flag pole and then sewed a better edge in its place. I happened to have an antique pillow form my Mom had covered with three or four layers and had given to me when I needed throw pillows for my apartment. After taking off all the layers, I had stuffed it in a closet and forgotten about it until now. Placing the flag over the pillow, I was shocked to find that it would fit perfectly without having to sew scraps of fabric to add to the flag's width and length, which I was planning on doing if I chose to go the route of using a pillow form. Using a navy blue fabric and lace I pinned everything together once I cut out the shape for the back of the pillow. It took me nearly an hour to pin it all and get ready to sew it. I wanted it to be perfect. I remember making a note to myself about backwards, inside out and right side in for pinning it and sewing it, knowing full well it has to be flipped right side out for the inserting of the pillow later on. I have done this many times and have made several pillows. No sweat, this will be a piece of cake, I thought to myself. HA! When I had finnished sewing three sides to the pillow cover and flipped it right side out, the flag was wrong! I had spent the past hour and half getting it all right, and now THIS!!! It was depressing. "I will be known for being a USA hater if I leave it like this," I told myself. I made my way to the guest bedroom, groaning the whole way, to show Nathan how "cute" the pillow is. I hugged it to myself with stars and stipes on the inside and blue backing facing him. I flashed him a huge smile as best as I could muster and then flipped the pillow around. He smiled too! Right before putting his hand over his mouth and laughing! I showed the pillow to my sister-in-law later that day and got the same results. *Sigh* It is really cute! I just wish I hadn't pinned it together wrong. The part about the flag slippped my mind because I was so worried about the lace boarder being perfect I didn't stop to think about the flag being BACKWARD when I flipped it out. I did however do research to make sure it didn't make me a USA hater if I went ahead and left it the way it is and sew up the fourth side to complete the pillow. I am not a USA hater and am not carrying around satanic signs of conspiracy against my country. There is no "backward" flag, it is only the perspective of being on a different side of the flag while it is waving in the wind. If you notice the USA flag patch on the right shoulder of USA troops, the flag is with the stars to the right instead of the left. This is a symbol of courage and also signifies the flag as a soldier runs to battle with the flag flying back in the wind as one stares at it from the right of the soldier.

I now plan to find another flag and do a seperate pillow and have them both on the same guest bed. There will always be a story behind this pillow. Only this time the other pillow I plan to make will have the stars on the left top corner. Though I won't call it the "right" way and I won't call the one I have now, "backwards" because when on a flag pole it is all relative and can't be bawkward. So how can it be backward when really they are meant to fly on a pole in the first place, I just happen to put it on the pillow instead.

I hope to post pictures of the doilies, drapes, and the pillow. Right now my camera batteries are dead.

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