I'm back! And With a Monogrammed Pillow.

Wow!  It has been a long time since I posted!  A new job and some road trips to visit our son in college have dominated my time.  

Not that I haven't been cooking and sewing...I mean a girl has to have some creative time, right? It just came down to cooking and sewing or blogging about cooking and sewing...and you know what choice I made!

The good news:  I have a number of projects lined up to blog about - starting with this monogrammed linen pillow:

Monogrammed linen pillow

 I made this for a special friend's birthday.  She and I have a wonderful friendship based on many shared passions. She is also one of the most thoughtful people I know - one of those people who always know just the right thing to say at the right moment and the right little gift to give to make you feel so special.

I do not have the gift of gift-giving.  But I wanted a really special gift for my friend.  I thought and thought about something to buy her for her birthday, but could not come up with something that was special enough for my dear friend.  Then I remembered a book of monograms that she gave to me years ago.  On the cover is a natural colored linen with a large ornate monogram on it.  Perfect!

I had some nice linen left from a set of embroidered collars I made for some fall dresses for my daughters.  I had a pillow form.  I had a pocket of time to sew.  A birthday gift was born!

Of course, the monogram on the cover of the book was hand embroidery and time factors ruled that out.  I think that the embroidery machine did a good job with the monogram for the time that I had.

A twist on a traditional monogram

The tassels on the corners of the pillow came from some trim from a $5.00 fill bag at a home dec store that we visited during our Stitchin' Charleston Style trip.  

Overall it was a satisfying afternoon of sewing and I was happy to give my friend a gift that came from my hands and heart.