The Comfort of Memories

Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.  

               ~ L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

 

This little pillow has been on my mental To Do list for a  long time.  The silhouettes were done by Kay Hogue , in 1981, at the now gone Rich's department store that most Atlantans still fondly remember.  I recall standing  beside Mandy and Brent watching them sit very very still as Ms. Hogue carefully cut their images from black paper.  They have hung on the walls in my den, living room, bedroom, and hallway.  They are dear to me and still make me smile.

I finally figured out a low tech way to reproduce the image and enlarge it a little bit.  I just took a photo of it on my ipad, and even I could figure out how to enlarge it!  I put a piece of typing paper on top and  lightly traced the outline with a pencil.  Just like I used to do as a teacher with an old overhead projector!  No scanners or computers to figure out!

The rest was easy.  I used  Woner Under on the back of the black linen and carefully cut it out with my sharpest little scissors.  I pressed it to the natural oatmeal linen and stitched around it using a small zigzag stitch.  I didn't want a satin stitch, and even though I like a blanket stitch, after several trials I decided on the open zigzag.

I made my piping from a larger piece of cording that was in my sewing room.  The only foot that would allow me to stitch close to it was the zipper foot, then I trimmed it and attatched it to the top of the pillow matching raw edges.  I added Brent's name and the year to the bottom back in black thread using the St. Charles font, and put my by BiBi label on the right side.  I stitched the enclosures with the #5 blind hem foot, and I need to add a few buttons and buttonholes to the back and Voila!  All done!

When I showed the pillow to Mandy while we were FaceTiming, her response was the 5 year old Mandy's response and I laughed out loud..."Why didn't you do me first?"

I  have many fond memories of their childhood days.