I curbed my craftiest ambitions this week after one of the fabric-painted robot tees that I made last week emerged from the washer: a smudged, sorry schmatte. What happened? I swear I followed directions (I think). And still here is this mottled t-shirt-now-dust rag. Tragedy. Or at least, very minor disappointment.  

Moving on: I’ve been meaning to make a pillow cover with some of this flower print I bought at a yard sale. I had a 22 x 22″ pillow insert, low goals, and about one hour, so I stuck with an envelope-style enclosure. I (more or less) followed the instructions at Cottage Magpie, which I thought were very good with excellent, helpful photos. I’m actually really proud of the piping (which I bought pre-made–so why the pride?). But the piping was fun to sew (zipper foot!) and it gives the pillow its essential pillowness, I think.

My other small adventure: sewing covers for the ugly blue mattress and pillow that came with the IKEA doll bed I bought for my neice and nephew. (Why does IKEA favor retina-searing shades of blue?) I also sewed a doll blanket to go on top. (For Boston locals: I bought the big polka-dot print from Fabric Corner, a sewing shop on the corner of Mass Ave. & Mill Street in Arlington, which has a lovely fabric selection & kind, friendly staff.) Following Brigit’s doll quilt post, I just sewed regular seams and turned inside out (although I added a layer of quilt batting and didn’t do the quilter’s knots).

But my biggest–and tiniest–achievement of the week? Figuring out how to do that tricky little stitch to close up seams. The stitch is sometimes called an invisible stitch, which makes it impossible to visualize, right? Whereas when the stitch is called a ladder stitch (visual here), it loses all its terrible mystery and becomes possible, and really not that hard.