Anniversary Pillows

On June 29th Douglas and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary. Last year we both gave each other gifts on paper since paper is the traditional anniversary gift for the first year. (I gave him a framed sexy picture of me, and he wrote me a poem and framed it, in case you are curious.) We decided at that time that we would continue the tradition in the following years.

This year was cotton, and I decided to make him pillows. Unfortunately, my first attempt was a failure. My second try met the same fate, but the third time was a charm. Douglas had to wait a couple of weeks for his pillows, but he seemed happy with them once he finally received them.

In order to make the pillows, I first purchased triathlon images from this website. If you want to make your own, you could use a stock image or create your own. You could also use a photograph. I printed the images on special fabric sheets for ink jet printers. Rather than iron the image on the fabric, this method prints the image directly on the cotton. I bought mine at Joann’s, but you can find it here on Amazon.

The reason my first attempts failed was that I tried to make velvet pillows. It was fortunate that I was not successful because these pillows look better in jean than they would in velvet. I have been collecting jeans for another project for a couple of years now. It took two pairs of jeans for me to make three pillows.

First I cut two pieces of jean the width of my cotton piece with the image.

After sewing the pieces together, I asked Crème to iron them for me.

Then, I cut two more pieces the length of these three pieces and sewed those on the sides.

I did the same thing for the image that would go on the back.

Finally, I sewed those two panels together. Just make sure that you do not sew all the way around. You need to leave a gap in the bottom to insert the stuffing. You will sew on the wrong side and then turn the pillow inside out.

It is recommended to buy new pillows every couple of years. I try to do this because pillows lose their firmness over time, however, that means that I have a lot of pillows in my house. I decided to use a couple of these old pillows rather than buy new stuffing. First I washed and dried the pillows. Then I fluffed the stuffing and used it to stuff my new pillow.

This occurred while watching this year’s Tour d’France on television. It was a fitting backdrop for making a bicycle pillow, don’t you think?

I followed this same process again to make the other pillow and here they are: swim, bike, run, Ironman.

I ended up making a third pillow with a canvas piece that my sister gave me for my birthday. This one is blank on the back.

Finally, Douglas received his anniversary present.

I am planning to publish another post on Friday, but it will be my 40th birthday, so I hope you will excuse me if I do not get around to it. I am really excited to finally show your my backsplash, though, so I will do my best to finish the post.

Happy Homemaking!