Personalized pillow cover

My nine year old girl is invited to her friend's birthday party this weekend, so I quickly whipped up this personalized pillow cover for the birthday girl, with her name appliqued on to the front side.

Here is the close up of the applique... My daughter and I selected the fabrics together.

I downloaded the alphabet template from here, and basically enlarged each letters to 200% using our home copier.  Then I used the paper backed iron on interfacing (or Heat'n Bond) to make my own fabric alphabet applique. 

There are many online resources out there such as this one with simple instructions, for making your own applique if you are interested.

I used blanket stitch function of my sewing machine to sew these alphabets on to the face of the pillow cover.

 Although this pillow will be given away as a gift, I think it matches pretty well with our living room sofa... don't you think?

BTW the crocheted granny square throw that is used as a sofa cover in the below image is handmade by my mom in Japan, a.k.a. the "crocheting machine"!

What amazes me the most is that my mom completes these large projects of granny square blankets/throws in about a week or two, and she often makes several of them in one winter for her friends and family.  Now you know why I call her the "crocheting  machine", because she's indeed a super human crocheting "machine"! (lol)



Well anyways, now that the pillow gift is completed, my daughter needs to create a handmade birthday card for her friend.   Hope the birthday girl likes her new pillow, and I hope that you all continue to enjoy your weekend.

  See you again soon :)