... Random Round-Up: iPod Sleeve, Floor Pillow & Plush Toy

I’m working on a reupholstering project that’s more complicated than the chair seat covers I did recently, so it’s going to be a little while before I can share it. In the meantime, I’ve made a few little things that, in and of themselves, didn’t really seem to merit their own post. That happens pretty often, actually – so I decided that maybe I’d start grouping these little projects together in a kind of odds & ends Random Round-Up. And for this inaugural RR post, I’ve got a couple of really rando items: an iPod sleeve, a floor pillow cover, and a stuffed dragon.

So up first: the iPod sleeve, made at the request of my sister Erin. For this little project I got to use fabric scraps that I had lying around, which I LOVE to do because I am neurotic about letting anything go to waste. The owl pinwale corduroy Erin chose was leftover from a baby outfit I made for a friend and the sleeve is lined with matching green corduroy. The sleeve is open at the top and I used some silk cord I had lying around to make a loop that would fasten over a button sewn to the front. This was a super-fast project – instant gratification sewing!

This is a sleeve for an iPod Classic, by the way. I probably should have taken a picture with the iPod half out of the sleeve so you could get an idea of the size, but as exceptionally clever readers I think you can picture how it works. I was happy with how it came out though - what do you think, maybe a new product line?

Moving on to the floor pillow cover! Right now we have kind of a seating issue in our living room, which is that there isn’t enough of it, and half of what there is, is in the process of being reupholstered. So my temporary,  budget-friendly solution is to make some floor pillows to sit or lean on, and very fortuitously, Joann’s happened to have a sale on pillow forms last week and I got a few 27”x27” pillow inserts for half price. The design for the cover is as basic as it gets: Just a big square with an invisible zipper. I love using invisible zippers for pillow covers – they are really easy to put in when you use the special little invisible zipper foot and I think they give you a really finished, professional look.

Like, I said, super-basic and not terribly noteworthy (and, obviously, already covered in cat hair. I should probably just say it's the new cat bed and call it a day). The fabric is Ikea – I previously made throw pillow covers out of the same fabric for the couch. It’s a ridiculous deal, something like $8 a yard for a nice, thick cotton that’s almost a canvas. The only downside is that you actually have to go to Ikea to get it, and now that we live in Maine, that is a way more onerous trip than it used to be from Boston!

So last thing for today – a stuffed dragon! This was my first attempt at a making a plush toy and was made as a late Christmas/Chinese New Year gift for a friend’s daughter (it’s the Year of the Dragon!). I ordered the pattern from DIY Fluffies on Etsy and had it via e-mail the same day – how cool is that? The .pdf included the pattern pieces and really good instructions to put the whole thing together. It’s made of fleece and stuffed with poly batting and is pretty dang cute if I do say so myself.

Again, I probably should have taken a picture of the dragon next to something else so you can get a sense of scale – it’s about 10” tall. Hey look, here he (she?) is on the half-reupholstered ottoman!

So there’s a little sneak peek at that project, which hopefully won’t take too too much longer to finish. In the meantime, Happy Valentines Day to you all! I hope someone buys you one of those heart-shaped doughnuts from Dunks. Those things look wicked good.