Start of the Nursery Project - Valence and Pillows

Another recent, but not-so-little project was to create the furnishings for a baby nursery!  Somehow, knowing these things were for a baby's room made the project all that more enjoyable!

I first met with the mother-to-be to discuss designs, then accompanied her to the fabric store to look at materials.  The theme she chose was "Chronicles of Narnia," and was to include iconic imagery from the series, including lions, crowns, lamppost, children in the woods, and quotes.  The colors she had in mind were cream, gold, and red.  

We found some gorgeous fabrics in cream and gold for crib furnishings, and a beautiful heavy red and gold chenille with a medieval look we thought would coordinate well.

We decided to use the patterned fabric for a valence and two pillows, which I describe in this post. 

The valence was to be hung from a 4" board, with box pleats on each end.  We decided to insert the heavier gold fabric inside the two pleats.    

The first step was to place a strip of the gold fabric in the place needed to be inside the pleat.

The next steps were cutting and preparing the lining, sewing it to the back of the main fabric (hemming the bottom edge and sides at the same time), then making the pleats and basting the entire top edge.

I stapled it to the top of a prepared board* and edged it with some cording made from the same fabric.  I tacked the pleats slightly to keep them from swinging open.  (*A board is prepared by covering it in lining fabric.  After stapling on the valence and cording, the lining fabric folds over to hide the staples and make it look tidy.)

Here it is posing on a filing cabinet for a picture.  We will have to wait for pictures of it installed - the home is in another state!

The pillows are 22" feather pillows.  They are edged in self cording, with zipper closures.

I just love feather pillows.  They have such a luxurious feel, and will always fluff up beautifully, with never a lump!

The rest of the project - crib skirt, bumpers and ties, comforter, pillow, and rail pad - will be covered in following posts!

Pillow Recover

This is just a little project to recover a couple of pillows.  The two pillows are being recovered using fabric the client had left over from breakfast room valences I made last fall (see earlier post).

There was nothing very unusual about this pillow recover.  The pillows were to be made with an envelope closure - where the cover could be removed, washed, and put back on.


When I removed the existing cover, by cutting off one side, I noticed the stuffing was well-formed, but loose.  I could see it wouldn't keep its shape if it were removed from an envelope enclosure and put back in.





So I took some lining fabric and made cases for the two pillow stuffings.

After preparing the pillow forms, I cut fabric for the two pillows, serged edges, made cording and attached it to the front, prepared the envelope closure for the back, and attached the two.  Since this fabric unravels very easily, after trimming the corners I treated them with a solution to keep the cut edges from fraying.

This picture shows the front of the two pillows, with the main design centered.








This picture shows the back, with the envelope closure.  Even though this side will not normally be seen, I tried to use pieces that would fit together close to the appearance of the main design.

I just love this fabric!