Pillow-licious

Once home-schooling let up for the year, and the garden had finally been planted, I found myself with some precious extra time on my hands. 😉 Glorious, unaccounted-for time that I wisely chose to… catch up on my Netflix binging with! 😛 Of course, this particular choice led to some serious feelings of guilt: “But there’s so much other stuff I SHOULD BE DOING!” 😁 So, me being me… I decided to give my hands some busy-work to do, so that I could at least consider my couch potato-ing time as somewhat valuable.

At first I though I might restock my cotton “squares” stash (cute 8-inch crocheted squares that I embellish with some fine/detailed crochet and that can be used for a variety of things)… but as there were zero craft fairs last Christmas, and none that I was looking to attend in the near future, I figured that I already had enough of them on-hand. I did, however, have a huge bag of yarn “ends” – pieces that weren’t quite long enough to make a new square with, and that did not have another colour-matched skein to add to…

Inspired by various Pinterest posts, I decided to use some of these colourful yarn ends to whip up some Granny Squares. Except that they didn’t really bring me as much joy as I thought they would. So… I experimented with various stitches and patterns, unraveling and re-crocheting multiple times, until I came up with a square I really liked – which happened to be very floral-looking. Once I had my pattern, I got to work stockpiling squares whenever I sat down to watch some TV.

As I worked, I found that I was gravitating towards particular colours or colour combinations (oh, hello fuchsia… AGAIN…) which made for a bit of redundancy. I decided to make a list of ALL of the yarn colours I had compiled over the years, and I tried to use them each in turn, but in different positions each time, if possible. I know, I know – it sounds very OCD or something, but it really helped to provide a better sense of balance once the squares were laid out together.

Once I had finished 16 squares, I had to decide what to actually DO with the squares: stitch them together to make a pillow? a purse? a veeery tiny blanket? 😉 or keep crocheting to make something larger, like an actual blanket? Given that I was now dipping in to my yarn reserves for an item that sells well at craft fairs… I decided I’d wrap things up and take the pillow-route. So, I popped out to Michael’s and picked up some neutral yarn (I decided I liked grey the best) to stitch the colours all together… and then I experimented with different joining techniques until I found one I liked.

Lastly, I dug out some linen fabric I had on-hand and sewed a pillow case to attach the 16-squared crocheted square to. I included a zipper at one end, so that I could remove the pillow case if ever it needed washing, and then I stuffed it with a regular, inexpensive, everyday pillow (with all the fluff shoved to one end). Ooooh… PURTY!!! Now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about!!! 💗

I was SO happy with the way it turned out… plus all of the positive feedback I received on social media… that I thought I would try making some pillows to sell. 🙂 Unfortunately, it’s taken me years to collect all of the different colours of cotton yarn that I have… plus, it’s somewhat heavy and not the most economical to work with in larger pieces. 🧐 Good thing Michael’s was having a yarn sale!

I started supplementing my stash of acrylic yarn with some new colours (from different brands: Michael’s own Craftsmart, Loops and Threads Impeccable, and Bernat Premium), and then I started stitching once again – with a new 26-member (plus 3 neutrals) colour palette, of course. I’ve gotta say… crocheting all of these squares made the multiple “too hot and smoky to go outside” days of the summer of 2021 somewhat bearable.

At first, I tried duplicating the first pillow with random coloured squares on grey. Then I tried a pillow of the most pastel colours on cream… followed by a pillow of the most bright colours on black. I just LOOOVE them all (for different reasons)! 💗 I’m sad that they take SO long to create – days to complete each crocheted pillow face – not to mention the fact that I still had to attach them to a zippered fabric cover of some kind. 🙄

Luckily, an early morning trip to IKEA (to invest in some storage solutions) provided a bit of a shortcut in the process. Whether by chance or by design, I was relieved to find that somehow my crocheted squares fit almost perfectly on the cotton IKEA Gurli pillow covers!!! Plus, with pillows on sale for $3… I could finish my floral Granny Square pillows at a reasonable cost – and without having to make covers from scratch! Score!!!

Next… Prewash/dry IKEA covers: ☑. Try to sew a large square onto a cover and fail miserably: ☒. Rip out all of the seams, except for the ones on the zipper-end, on each pillow and try again: ☑. Sew a big square onto a cover, and restitch the side seams: ☑. Stuff with a fluffed-up pillow and close: ☑. Voilà! Success meets cuteness overload!

It took a while, but I finally got all 7 of the big Granny Squares onto covers and ready for stuffing. After I took a bunch of photos, that is. And now – off they go to Etsy! Wish them luck! =)