Anime Pillows

What have I been doing this week, you ask?  Making anime pillows.  Duh.  What else would I be doing?  You think I do normal things like watch TV?  Psht!  No!  I come home from work, jump on the sewing machine, and my life is complete!  (Apparently I have no social life.)




This week I made a pillow and a pillowcase.  The case was going to be a pillow, too, but the first pillow came out rather lumpy, so it was decided the second pillow would be a pillow case to save it from suffering the same lumpy fate.

So, first, my pillow!

I had this T-shirt that was a million years old (like, maybe, seven-ish), and I decided it was time to retire it before the graphic started crackling horribly.  (It was already starting!  How sad!)  I couldn't bear to part with it, because, well, it's Trigun.  You know how I am about Trigun.  So I had heard somewhere about turning T-shirts into pillows and thought it'd be a great way to keep my beloved shirt around.

Cutting up the T-shirt was just about traumatizing.  I held the fabric between the blades of the scissors, and I realized, "This is it!  Once you make just one cut, you can never wear this shirt again!... EVER!"  Then I hyperventilated for a second.  Then I quietly said, "Aaaaaah!"  Then I thought, "Just do it right now really fast before you change your mind!"  And then I did!  And then everything was okay.

I've learned that shopping for fabric is something that's completely awesome and full of magical wonderfulness, and also a completely harrowing experience.  I turn the corner into the fabric department of Hobby Lobby and a heavenly light shines down on all the wonderful colors and designs to choose from.  And then I realize, I can only choose one of them!  (Oh the humanity!)  And then the lady cutting my fabric asks me the horrible question, "How much do you need?"  All she wants to know is how much to cut, but I feel like I've been hit by a pop quiz!  I still haven't caught on to how much a certain number of yards gives you in relation to spread-out-on-the-floor-so-I-can-see-how-much-I-have-ness.  So I nervously suggest a number of feet, usually in the form a question.  "Um... two feet?"  It's like I secretly hope the woman will answer "yes" or "no" so I'll know for sure if that's the right amount or not.

While getting fabric for my pillow, I was really hoping that, since Trigun has a Wild West flavor to it (a really weird Wild West flavor), I could find something cowgirly.  You know, like cowboy hats and horse shoes on a pink background.  Sadly, all the cowboy fabric came in either blue or red.  But then I found pink paisley, and I thought, "Paisley is rather Western-ish, right?"  Hobbly Lobby threw me one last curve ball by giving me two pink paisley fabrics to choose from!  But after a tough struggle, I overcame and chose the better of the two!

There's no epic story to go with the back of the pillow.  It's just fabric from the back of the T-shirt.

It's probably the lumpiest pillow I've ever owned (but I don't really mind).  Part of that is a bad stuffing job on my part, and part of it is that the T-shirt material is slightly stretchy.  So, if there's a lump in the stuffing, the shirt just bulges to accommodate it.  Oh well, now I know for next time.

ON TO THE PILLOWCASE!

It fits a travel pillow, and it's double sided, so you get to see two pictures (and the color of my awful shag carpet)!

When the anime Hetalia came out on DVD, the pre-orders came with bandanas.  So then I had these two bandanas that were far too cute and awesome to get rid of, but I'm just not a bandana wearer.  For a long time I didn't know what to do with them, and then working on my T-shirt pillow gave me the idea.  Cutting up the bandanas wasn't as scary as cutting up the T-shirt, but it was still unnerving.  (Nerd talk:  I decided I'd make a bad alchemist.  I'd put my stuff in the middle of my transmutation circle and then freak out.)

When it came to the trim fabric, I wanted something with similar colors to the pink and blue, but something very colorful with flowery/swirly/starbursty kind of things, because that's just how Hetalia is.  I mean, just look at it!

Yeah, I'm pretty confident in my fabric choice on this one.

I actually found this really neat trick online to sewing a pillowcase so that the trim fabric is right side out both inside and outside the pillowcase, and it was awesomely easy and clever.  I got so excited, I thought I'd do a whole blog post with step by step pictures and stuff.  Later, I thought, "No one really cares about how you made a pillow case, Sarah."  So I didn't.  But suffice it to say, I made my pillowcase in a way that was awesomely easy and clever.

So then, what will I be doing this coming week?  Sewing a new cosplay!  But it's a secret!  (Sort of.  One person knows.)  But here's a hint!