Holiday Sewing: It begins

You guys, I had the most productive weekend. I took several naps, I watched The Conjuring [zomg scariest movie ever, and I hate scary movies], ate Chinese food with a friend, went to see Ender's Game [great!], and...took down my Halloween decorations.

Which meant I had a naked pillow! Eep!

Fabric: literally the perfect weird orange shade from Kitschy Kitchen and the perfect rusty shot cotton, plus Lush Uptown of course

What's a girl to do but make a new pillow cover for the month of November?

This pillow cover conveniently coincides with the Sewing with Certainty series over at Quilty Habit! Ah, serendipity. As I was making this simple cover, I thought about how I really want to expand my FMQ skills. I'm brave every now and then and try a new design, but once I become comfortable with it I forget to continue on to a different design. So designs that I'm comfortable with [stippling, swirls, pebbles, back and forth lines] become the norm.

And if we don't push ourselves, how will we ever improve? [Ps, you can link up your goals over at Quilty Habit right here]

But baby steps, folks, which is why on this pillow, I went with a design that I feel comfortable with on the inner border, and instead just tackled how to transition through the corners. It's not perfect, but I'll take it. And I've made a promise to myself to continue the trend when I make my Christmas pillows in a few weeks. Because 24" pillow covers are the perfect practice size!

And then once I finished sewing the pillow, I thought to myself, "November is just a few short weeks away from December, so I better get my holiday sewing started," which led to a small army of these guys:

These are from the Santa gnoma panel from last year's Winterkist line. I still have a little more than a yard of the black print, not including the 20 gnomas that I cut out on Saturday. Plus 1/2 yard of the pink gnomas. They're backed in a red pin dot and stuffed with polyfill, then hand-stitched closed at the bottom. Sometimes I add a pocket on the back for an alternative to Elf on a Shelf -- which I love the concept, but find the actual elf to be really creepy.

Gnomas for all!

Happy Fabric Tuesday everyone :)

*Linked with Quilt Story