Y’all. I. AM. NOT. A. FINISHER. I swear I will never attempt to finish anything else by myself, ever again. Sigh.
Here we go: I started off with 1 1/2″ strips of the yellow fabric, which I wanted closest to the stitched design. So far so good. Then I decided that I would make each of the other colors 1/2″ bigger.
I scrapped that idea pretty quickly, but not before I had cut the strips. Sigh. If I had kept them progressively bigger, I would have wound up with a HUGE finished piece. Have I mentioned that math is not my strong suit? I won’t even attempt to figure out how big the piece would have been had I stayed with the original plan.
So I started off ok, sewing the first strip to the design.
So far so good! I added the rest of the yellow strips.
I love how the yellow really sets off the design. At this point I was pretty happy with what I was doing.
Next I added the blue strips.
Again, pretty happy so far – I think I can do this!
Now for the green strips. Boy, am I glad I decided to make them all the same size.
At this point I realized that I wasn’t stitching as straight as I had hoped. My bands are looking a little wonky.
I pressed on and added the purple strips.
Y’all. This thing is huge at this point, 14″ on each side. Did I mention that I’m not great at math? I should have figured this out when I was planning to make a “small” pillow. I realize that I should have made the strips 1″ wide, so that with a 1/4″ seam allowance for each seam, the finished band would have been 1/2″ wide, which would have resulted in the “small” pillow I was wanting. Sigh.
I was too far in at this point to abandon, so I went ahead and attached the cording. Did I mention that I’m not great at math? My cording did not go all the way around, because I miscalculated when I was cutting my bias strips – I measured around the stitched design, not the now huge 14″ on each side monster that I had created. So, I no longer had enough cording to make one continuous length, which would have been ideal; I did have enough to make another length the same as the first one, so that’s what I did, and pieced them together around the design.
I’m so far beyond the point of no return now that I continued on, with the purple backing. Have I mentioned that I’m terrible at math? The piece of purple I had left after cutting too-wide strips that I didn’t need wasn’t big enough to completely cover the back, so I decided to piece together what I did have to cover the back. Sigh.
I got the backing onto the front. Again, my sewing leaves A LOT to be desired; I just haven’t done enough of it lately to be precise enough. I’ve forgotten quite a lot about sewing, which I now wish I had retained.
Anyway, I left an opening so I could turn everything right side out. Not quite big enough, but I struggled, got a hand cramp, and managed to get it turned right side out. Then remembered that I wanted to put a couple of layers of batting in it. Sigh.
I cut the batting, then tried to force it into the too small opening I’d left. I got it in, then couldn’t get it straight. So I ripped a bit open in the back seam so I could get my hand in it to straighten the batting.
Finally. And I repeat, I will never try finishing again. I’ll leave it to the experts, and concentrate on what I do best, which is designing and hand stitching with a blunt needle.
Anyway, here’s the finished “small pillow”.
And I remembered that all the batting would shift around unless I secured it somehow. So I took some of the purple thread left from the stitching, and made tacking ties at the corners of the stitched design. I should have done more, but at this point I WAS DONE.
What have I learned? 1. I am not a finisher. 2. I’m terrible at math. 3. I’ll leave finishing to the experts from now on.