Monday, August 16, 2010

Pillows

I had too much to say on the subject of pillows for my last post.


We have been buying pillows often lately but cannot seem to find just the right combination of fluffy and firm. My favorite pillow ever was made with crushed foam, which can get packed into a harder ball, or left to loosely cradle your head. It was just what both of us were searching fruitlessly for. We have had a few pillow-squeezing trips*, but the pillows we bought would either compact quickly into headache-inducing lumps or deflate completely. (I have some opinions relating to pillows here, it seems.) I finally looked all over the internet for crushed foam pillows, and discovered that they can cost $120 each. Ouch. So I bought some crushed foam online, and made the pillows today. The foam was $23 with shipping for 2 1/2 pounds. It was enough for 2 pillows, possibly 3, depending on how full you like your pillow.
This is what the foam looks like:
I cut out four pieces of satiny fabric I had in my stash into pieces 22 inches by 30 inches, sewed up three sides, and stuffed them. The foam stuffing is a lot of different sizes, and occasionally there are hard bits that I picked out to keep the pillows fluffy. No one will lose an eye on these!
Then I sewed up the last side on my machine.
The stuffing travels through the air and has a lot of static in it, so cleaning up was a pain, but in the end it was worth it.
Tonight, we'll try them out, and add more stuffing if necessary.
Custom pillows for $23. Not bad!

*A note on pillow-squeezing trips: There is nothing like standing in the pillow aisle at Wal-Mart and taking down each pillow and methodically squeezing it to garner stares from strangers. Has no one ever tried squeezing the pillows they buy?

Summer Projects


Here's a quick run down on the past month:

I moved to Bushnell and whipped out two sets of light-blocking shades for our bedroom windows. I know it's hard, but guess which one was for the boys?



We had the festival, came home for a week, went to Canada to see the relatives, and a certain young man turned 10.
Then we went back to Bushnell for vacation. It was hot. But that did not deter us from petting tigers when the opportunity presented itself. The littlest Winter got bit by the littlest tiger, but the teeth did not break skin. It made for a good story, and lots of later bragging.
We came home last night, and I made these pillows:


I have more to say about pillows, so check out the next post!