A Day of Rest?

And another week comes to an end. Sunday, that equates to lie ins and relaxing. Right? Oh, how I wish. Not around here, unfortunately. Up with the birds. Silly me. Silly birds! Do they have to be so loud?!

Then there was the usual round of 'stuff'. I put the ribs in the oven - a very low oven - sprinkled with Cajun spices and wrapped in foil. Ironed as few things as I could get away with. Made a cooked breakfast for the girls - because they had another long rehearsal - and then their hair. The dreaded hair. Helen's isn't too bad because (a) she doesn't get as upset when I accidentally cause a bit of pain, and (b) she has long hair and no fringe. Emily's? Well she has much shorter hair, a fringe and a much lower pain threshold. Enough said! And then I took them to the rehearsal in town.

At some point I caught up on the necessary and had time for the fun stuff. Today I decided to see how much further along I could get with my pillow. Please keep in mind that I am new to pillows, didn't have a pattern and was making it up as I went along. I decided that I wanted the back of the pillow to be as sturdy as the front so I layered up and basted the gorgeous (if I must say so myself) piece of Tilda fabric I had ready and did some stippling.

Then I cut the fat quarter in half to make the two sides of the envelope pillow back. I did a narrow binding on each edge, just plain white on the edge that wouldn't be seen and the green apples on the other. Oh, and I did something I have never done before (please, don't tell the quilt police). I machine stitched the binding! I figured for this little edging it didn't really matter. In all honesty, I am a hand stitch the binding down sort of girl but I do believe that it is a choice and no one way is the correct way. And it certainly is much faster!

Next I overlapped the backing pieces, right sides down, and placed the cushion front on top, right side up - pinned them together and zigzagged stitched all around the edge. I thought it could us the extra strength the zigzag stitch would give it what with all those layers of wadding, etc. Once done I trimmed off the excess backing.

Made the binding -

There was an intermission while I went to pick up the girls from dance rehearsal, and then I sewed the binding on. Now all I have left to do is hand sew it to the cushion back. Yes, I am going to finish it by hand. It just feels the right way for myself.

A question for all you people out there who have sewn a thousand and one pillows that look amazing. Have I done things wrong at all? Is there a better or easier way of making pillows? Do I need to conquer my over-riding fear of zippers? What would you suggest I try next time?

Finally, I have just made a side dish for dinner that may be pushing the boat out a little too far on my little beasties culinary tastes - and they have pretty wide reaching tastes! I made a black bean salad by rinsing a tin of black beans and then adding bell pepper, chili pepper, sweet corn, red onion, garlic and coriander. I doused it with some olive oil and a splash of lemon juice. I like it but I somehow think I had better peal some carrots and slice some cucumber as an alternative to accompany the ribs for missy one and missy two.

I am off to mix up a barbeque sauce to baste the ribs with. They have been in the oven for over eight hours now and should be so tender even my MIL could eat them (not that she is coming to dinner tonight - too close to cruise departure date). Hope you all had a good day and that I have a finished pillow to show you a photo of tomorrow.

Susan