The Road to Crafty: 31 Days of Halloween 2014

Y'all, I don't know what happened, but today 100% got away from me. Every time I looked at the clock, it was way later than I expected it to be. I had just started making this little guy and it was already time for me to pick Mr. D. up at school. I finished a few projects, and realized that it was time for dinner already. After dinner, I started scanning and labeling pictures, and, well, here I am at 10 pm posting today's project. I suck at this everyday blogging stuff. Sorry about that.

But this little guy might make up for my deficiencies ;P This here is Vlad. And Vlad, he's totally rad. He looks a little concerned at the moment, but that's mainly because it was sunny out when I took the pictures and he just wasn't down with that. The whole exploding into flames thing had him a bit on edge. No worries - no Vlads were harmed in the photographing of this project...

If you were around yesterday, then you saw the first round of pillow covers named Franky. He was adorable, but the cover didn't fit as well as I would have liked with just a tab and a button, so today I decided to try a zipper.

I made a special trip to Hobby Lobby for some lavender flannel, and wouldn't you know it, they didn't have it. Nor did they have grey. Nor ivory. Hmmm. So I made my way to the craft felt and found a few sheets of that in a nice purple color. That being said, here are all the supplies you'll need for this. This guy is a VERY cheap date ;)

2 pieces of lavender felt
3 pieces of black felt
1 piece of white felt
1 7" lavender or violet zipper
thread in black and white
12" pillow form (if you don't have one already)
Free pattern

First things first - print off your pattern for the pillow cover, cut out and tape together. Lay it on a flat surface, and lay one of your purple pieces of felt on the bottom portion. Most craft felt is 9"x12" (if they cut it evenly, which they almost never do), so it'll cover most of the bottom.

Lay a piece of black felt on the top of the pattern piece.

Lay your template for Vlad's hair on top and figure out where you want the point to go. Then fold your felt in half, pin pattern onto it and cut out. (Resize pattern if needed, or freehand his hair. Totally up to you!)

Pin the hair onto the purple.

Sew around the hairline.

Trim the purple felt in the back close to the seam. This is what it will look like:

Fold a piece of white felt in half, then pin the larger circle on top. Cut around. This will give you both whites of the eyes at one time.

Do the same with the smaller circle on a piece of black felt.

Sew the irises to the whites of the eyes, then position the eyes where you want them on the face and sew them down with a straight stitch.

For the back of the pillow, line up the purple and black the same way you did with the front, except leave it a straight line. Try to line up the sides, but if you don't, it's not the end of the world. Sew, then trim the purple fabric close to the seam.

Now, cut Vlad's mouth out of black felt and his fangs out of white. Position them where you would like them and sew them down. Once his face is all together, we'll start on the zipper. This is a super easy way to do it, I promise!

First, pin the bottom edge of the front and back pieces RIGHT sides together (facing each other) and sew with a basting stitch (the longest stitch length on your machine.) Press the seam open with your iron. I didn't get a picture from the back before I sewed it on, but this will give you an idea. You want to pin the zipper so that the teeth are right on the backside of the seam, but you want to pin it from the front. I hope that makes sense. This picture shows the back side...

And this is the front. Sew all around the zipper with your zipper foot attached (so you can get as close as possible to the teeth without actually sewing through them)

Now, use your seam ripper and rip out the stitches inside your rectangle. Assuming things went according to plan, you should have a functioning zipper! Go you!! Open the zipper. This is VERY important, as this is how you are going to flip the pillow right side out.

Fold it together again, just like when you did the first seam. Only this time, you are going to pin and sew all the way around the pillow

Clip your corners so they look better from the outside.

Flip right side out through the zipper, making sure to push the corners all the way out. Stuff with your pillow form, zip closed, et voila! Vlad is here to party!