I Heart Monograms

I mean, seriously, who doesn't love a pretty monogram?!  I would put initials on every single thing I own if I could afford it/my hubs would allow me too.  They're pretty and classic and just plain fun.  Makes me smile every time.

Enter stage right: our comfy large pillow in the living room.

On a whim (I was bored and had no sewing project for the day) I made a cover for a 16x24 pillow form I had hanging around out of our drapery fabric.  I thought it'd be nice to have the fabric pulled over to the sofa and it is a seriously comfy pillow - can't go wrong - right?!  Well, I knew it would need something to help jazz it up a bit, but in an effort to not make ANOTHER trip to the fabric store, I just left the trim off and decided we'd make do until hubsters would give me permission to buy some trim and then I'd remake it.  Easy cheesey.  No big deal.

see the pillow in question on the right? - yeah - it's naked

And the pillow did NEED something.  It was cute - but was definitely not statement making - and definitely felt a little naked.  Now, I don't know if I saw this somewhere on Etsy, a random blog, or maybe I made it up - but I came up with the idea to make a pillow "sleeve".  I figured it would break up the large floral and maybe that would be all it needed.

now it's dressed up and all pretty

But yesterday, I discovered that doing appliques really wasn't that difficult even though I don't have an embroidery machine and then the monogram was born.  I actually made the pillow sleeve twice, because the first time, like a dummy, I traced the letter with a red pen and you could see faint pinkness hanging out in the stitches. Not cool.  So instead of going to bed like a smart stay at home mommy, I wired myself up and made another one.  Much better.  I traced with yellow this time around.. ;)

And the best part - the first one was done when the hubs got home from work - and he QUOTE "that looks great - did YOU do that?"  SCORE!!!  He loved it and it looked good enough that he was IMPRESSED that I did it!! yay!!!  Gotta love that man!!  I don't think he is even aware of what he did for my self-esteem.

This might make it onto the Christmas Gift List Possibilities for everyone I know...so - if you are expecting a gift from me this year - let me know if this is the one you want - or feel free to ignore this post all together and be surprised in six months! ha!