Feather Your Nest Follow Up....

In my last post I told you about the 'Feather Your Nest' competition over at Stumbles & Stitches.  Wow!  That was *so* much fun!  And I stand corrected:  there were 73 entries (not 72 as previously reported - oopsie).  There was such a flurry of entries, deadlines, voting, narrowing down the field, voting again, prizes, categories of winners.... a girl can get confused!!  I nearly missed the fact that my Falling Leaves Pillow was voted one of the top ten favorites by some pretty impressive judges!  Thank you, dear judges for the recognition!

Forgive me if I've mentioned this before, but I've been up to my eyebrows in felty wool felt (an nuthin' BUT felty wool felt) for over three years now, and have not taken the time to do much stitching.  It seems as though the universe is calling out to me to change my ways and come up out of the felt mines once in a while and enjoy the pleasures of my sewing room once again.  I remember once upon a time when I was actually designing patterns... hmmm.....

Feathering Your Nest...

The ladies over at Stumbles & Stitches put their heads together recently and came up with a great challenge - they call it 'Feather Your Nest'.  The point of the challenge was to make something for your home using stitches, and something up-cycled or re-purposed.

I loved the idea of the challenge and made a long list of all the
possibilities... it was a little hard to narrow it down! But finally, an
obvious choice emerged.

 I wanted to add a personal touch to my new living room furniture, so I thought a pillow would be perfect.  Designing 'on the fly', I die-cut feather-ish shapes from my felty wool felt, hand-stitched them to a contrasting panel, bordered the panel with cording, and framed it with a felted wool fabric purchased eons ago from who knows where...and stuffed it by cutting down an extra bed pillow that was going to be sent to Salvation Army in the very near future! 

I named the pillow 'Falling Leaves' and it was designed to be displayed in a vertical position, but I think it works vertically as well.  The colors blend with both the patterned chair and the more solid color on the couch. 

There were 72 'Feather Your Nest' entries - wow!  That was a terrific response to the challenge, don't you think?  You can see all of the entries and vote for your favorites right here.  Please note, I am not asking you to 'vote for ME!' as I find that sooooo irritating.  I'd sincerely like you to vote for the entries that you like best.  Voting ends tomorrow - Thursday, May 3, so don't wait if you want to vote!