We have a lady here from the USA who has been staying at the church. She’s a missionary to Ukraine but temporarily staying in Poland - helping out with Ukrainians who are in the area.

Recently she decided to rent a place away from the church - and in doing so, we got herself some curtains.

She asked me if I would be willing to hem them - that she already marked them and even pressed in the hem!!!

Oh my - of course I said “Yes”. I know that some quilters say that they won’t do any sewing except quilting - but I’m not like that. I was a garment sewer long before I started quilting and also did home deco projects.

I can use my skills to help people (I realize that people could in theory abuse one’s kindness. I’m not referring to that.)

She told me that if I thought I could use the leftover fabric, to go ahead and take it. When I picked up the curtains (which she left at church), I went ahead and picked up the leftovers - thinking, “Wow, they seem like they are pretty big pieces - maybe enough to make her some pillows to go with the curtains.”

Once home, I took the pieces and laid them on my cutting mat.

Big enough.

This is what I did. Hemming the curtains didn’t take too long. She thought I would just zip down the pressed line with the machine (leaving a raw edge), but that just went against the grain of this former sewing teacher). But the fabric, surprisingly enough, folded under quite well and since she had already pressed the seam in place, it went pretty well.

She already had pressed the hem into place

All I had to do was turn under and sew

I was asking her for clarification as to where to sew

I then took the rest of the fabric and made these pillows. I didn’t have enough of the one fabric to make big pillows as the pieces I had were only about 11” wide. I decided to make her some big 4 patches on the front and just to use up the rest on the back.

I did have to run to the store and get some pillow forms. I told her if she could wait until the later in the day I could have the pillows ready for her - and so she stopped by after her shopping to pick up the curtains and pillows. I had gone out to get the pillow forms after our midday meal.

(Thankfully I learned where they sell these things locally last year while buying all kinds of things for Ukraine.)

Back sides of these pillows - just to use up all the fabric. Obviously I had to add some of my quilting fabric to have enough.

I did need a zipper foot since I did use zippers in each pillow form in order to use less fabric. If you make a pillow form with no zipper, it takes more for the overlap than by using inserting a zipper.

I struggled when using the Juki industrial with the first zipper. I had bought an aftermarket zipper foot for it - didn’t work well.

In the end, I moved over to my little Pfaff Hobby and then packed it back away as it decided to have a problem with the upper thread (I believe I need to tighten the screw on the bobbin holder but I didn’t have the right screwdriver with me), but instead pulled out my last chance machine - my SECOND Pfaff Hobby that I bought when I began to quilt and thought I needed a better machine than my original Pfaff Hobby 422.

Many years ago now this machine had been given to someone who subsequently broke it. I bought it back from her for about $15 rather than see it go to the trash (it was a much more expensive machine than the first Pfaff Hobby I had). Both are mechanical machines.

I kept it in hopes that I could get it fixed by someone who knew what to do. My friend, Ewa, who has helped so much with charity quilts, did a lot of running around for me and found someone to fix it and took care of getting it fixed. Thanks so much, Ewa! You saved the day here!

So, I had this more expensive machine and I brought it out. It had all the feet including a zipper foot - everything worked well! So, I used it to put in three of the zippers.

It was after I struggled with the throat size on this machine that I decided to completely upgrade and get a bigger and heavier machine with a big throat (Janome 7700) back in 2010. I had just needed more space. The only thing I couldn’t find now was a little plastic endy thing to keep the thread on the spool pin. I can probably use some sticky tack in lieu of it - it would probably work. I used a separate thread stand I had.

Anyway, I did manage to get all of the zippers in, the raw edges were all zig zagged due to massive fraying by this fabric, and I finished up the project.