Just Call Me Martha Effing Stewart!

I purchased a sewing machine a few weeks back.  You know- on my wild Saturday night in Target where I picked up a new vacuum and a sewing machine?  Living the dream here people!  Loser, party of one, your table is ready.  Well with all of the Super Bowl festivities and my lack of knowledge on using an actual sewing machine, it sat in the box on my washing machine.....until yesterday.

I decided to attempt covering a pillow that I already had from my apartment in Florida that has been sitting in my spare closet for more than 2 years.  This pillow was kind of a hot mess- shiny iridescent fabric (shit- it was Miami, OK?), missing a button, shiny iridescent fabric....  Exhibit Hot Mess below:

I recently purchased and repainted a chair for my front spare bedroom.  You can read about that here.  I had some leftover fabric that I was going to use to recover this pillow for the chair.

I headed over to Joann's earlier in the week to pick up some thread, pins and buttons.  Just want to state that Joann's is seriously lacking in the button department.  Major disappointment.  After having a little meltdown with myself and my brain on what I was going to do now, I remembered that they make button cover kits.  So I skipped out of the button aisle and went in search for this.

This kit was seriously easy and it was only $3.79.  I probably paid less for the kit than I would have for 3 new buttons.  And they match!! I highly recommend using it if you ever need to cover buttons with fabric.  I literally finished the three buttons while I was watching tv sitting on my couch.  In like 5 minutes.  It was probably the most productive 5 minutes of my week right there.  Here's a mind blowing tutorial to show you how easy it was.

 Trace the pattern on the fabric

 Cut the fabric out

Place fabric on rubber cup and then put button top on fabric 

Push button top down into rubber cup 

Push button bottom into fabric and button top 

End result 

Viola!  Easy Peasy

Back to yesterday.  I cleared off my kitchen table and busted out the sewing machine and sat down to read the directions.  HAH.  I threaded it up and tested on some left over scrap fabric from the chair.  After getting two straight lines I decided it was time to attempt the pillow.  One thing I should mention is that I certainly didn't make my first attempt at sewing easy by any means.  While I was at Joann's strolling through the aisles I came upon some teal piping.  

I thought it would look pretty cool to edge the pillow with this and hoped it would match the chair color.  Genius I tell you.  

I started out by popping the remaining two buttons off and placing the pillow onto the fabric to get the size of the two pieces, leaving a couple of extra inches on each side.  

Then I ironed both pieces to get a hem so I had a straight line on the fabric.  

Then I started pinning the two hemmed pieces to the piping.  You'll notice that I did it the wrong way- it should have been inside out.  I did this on purpose though.  I wanted to get the hemmed edge right up to the piping and I wouldn't have been able to see that doing it inside out.  Once I had the first side pinned I flipped it over and pinned the inside (the correct side) and took out the original pins.  I'm sure there was an easier was of doing this but I'm a sewing virgin.  After I did that, I flipped it back to right side out to check to see if the piping was still where it was supposed to be.  

After pinning the top and two sides I flipped it inside out again and got to sewing.  I really had no idea what I was doing so I figured that I would have to start over at some point (luckily I had enough fabric for a few screw ups!).  I pulled the material out of the machine and put it onto the pillow to check out how I was doing so far.  

So far so good!  I was actually pretty impressed with myself.  I took the pillow back out and reversed the material again and did about 3 inches on each side of the bottom- leaving enough space that I could stuff the pillow back  into it.  Once I finished that I put the pillow back in and pinned the bottom to make the material tight and then started putting in the buttons.  

Once I had all three buttons in and pulled to the tightness I wanted- I started hand sewing the bottom of the pillow cover.  

And then I did a little dance when it was done!!!  Literally.  I'm sure my neighbor saw me through my back doors dancing with a pillow in my kitchen.  Who knows what they were thinking. But who cares?  Her name is Coco.  She's got enough to worry about with that name. So here is the finished product.  Glamour shots!!

Work it!  Work it!!  I actually had to take the pillow off of the chair so that you can see the piping because it's almost a perfect match and the camera wasn't getting a good shot of it since it blended right into the chair.  

I think I did a pretty fabulous job if I do say so myself for it being my first time sewing!!  Queue me patting myself on my back here.  Now I just need to find the screws for the chair seat.  I put the bottom on to "just take pictures" waaaaaay back in October and left it up there.  Now I can't find the screws.  Oops.  That's not the first time I've lost a screw.  Just sayin.  Hope no one sits in the chair anytime soon.