Pillow Project

A while ago, I was given a bunch of pieces of upholstery fabric. Most pieces were really quite small. None of them were even big enough to be called a remmant. I thought, sometime, I need to see if there is something I can do with those.

I had stored them for two years and decided to drag them out. In one book, I had a pattern for something called a cuddle drop. It was quite cute in the book. My niece really liked them and so I thought I would try and make one.

Part of my thought process was that maybe I could come up with something that I could give as Christmas gifts or something. So above was the first one. It was made with some fleece I had on hand and a piece of the upholstery fabric. I had to buy felt to make the eyes and stuffing.

I posted the photo on facebook and most of the reactions were quite puzzled. What is it? What do you do with it?

Probably not the best idea for a gift.

My niece thought they were great and so with her picking out the fabrics from the upholstery pieces, we made all of the above between us. She made some and so did I. Most are for her. A few are for her family. We call this a crowd of cuddle drops. I had a request from someone at church to make some for her kids. So I did that. But I decided I was done with them. They weren't too exciting and I was wasting stuffing.

There are all kinds of odds and ends in the two boxes. I pulled out all the animal prints. I separated some by color and made these two pillows. They are on the smaller size, 12 to 14 inches. I think they turned out pretty well. However...I had to go to the fabric store and buy braid to dress them up a little. So now that has added about 13$ to my "free" pillows. And then a pillow form, at 40% off, was still about 6 dollars. So now they have cost me almost 20$ plus my time. And who is going to want these particular colors in their house?

I have a few other ideas for the scraps that I will try.

But why is it whenever I think I have a "great" idea to make gifts, it costs way more than if I just bought something?