Christmas throw pillows
size: each are 14" square
My youngest daughter (20 y/o as of 2008) is still very vocal about Believing in Santa Claus, as she knows it's Santa that fills the Christmas stockings on Christmas morning. Once you stop believing in Santa, you get a big goose egg in your stocking. :-)
I found a freebie Christmas machine embroidery of "I Believe" on SewForum and paired it with some "Believe!" flannel from Joann's to make her a throw pillow. The embroidery was done on a white-on-white quilting cotton fabric and red piping framed the oval embroidery. Unfortunately, at the time I saved the design, I wasn't saving the digitizer's name. I recent search of the SewForum site turned up no results. Sooooo ... I regret that I can't pass along the link to the design.
My oldest daughter (25 y/o as of 2008) and her boyfriend rent a cuter-than-a-bug 1 bedroom Craftsman house in Seattle, WA. The living room finally got cleaned enough so that she could take a picture of it for me to see. It appeared as though their sofa & chair were a soft gray upholstered "something" and they had a blue/gold/old rose Persian-type rug. Using that color scheme, I made each of them throw pillows for the sofa and/or chair in a gray velveteen, embellished with Celtic knotwork and their monograms. (note: monograms have always looked weird to me since the initial of the surname is in the middle.)
Since my daughter likes sushi (to me, aka "fish bait" or less appetizingly "chum") I backed her pillow with a sushi print. I only had a long narrow strip of it; not enough for the width of the pillow. So, I joined the long narrow strips of sushi print with another narrow strip of the gray speckled fabric I used for the monogram. I also used one of my decorative stitches on my sewing machine to embellish those seamlines.
Daughter's boyfriend's name is Forrest. I have all sorts of fun creating deliciously groanful puns based on his name (he has good sense of humor) ... such as his presents will henceforth be wrapped in green paper so he will know they are his. "Why?", he foolishly asked .. cuz the color is ..... wait for it, wait for it ... "forest green!" :-)
Anyway, I had this fabric that vaguely looked like tree bark and that is what I used as the backing for his pillow. My daughter recognized the "significance" right away. That's my girl! :-)