DIY vintage wool blanket Christmas pillow

Hello and welcome to my madness! Do you have ideas falling out of your pockets? Wonderful, beautiful ideas? I am both cursed and blessed to have creative ideas, just like popcorn, but like popcorn (in the air popper anyways) it gets all over the counter and floor and well you’re chasing it around to scoop it back into the bowl, my “popcorn” ideas are all being scooped up figuratively to be put back into my “bowl” of madness, so many ideas… so many in fact I sometimes over do it! Now if  Mr. Mans is reading that, he’s just spit his coffee all over the computer screen! 😉 I’ve never really admitted that before! I had some grand ideas for this year’s Christmas… sigh, but right at this moment, my home looks like a bomb went off! I’m trying to get everything ready for an early Christmas tour that I’m beyond excited and skeerred out of my mind about!  So as I write this, I am putting my fears to the side and instead of dancing like no one is watching, I’m decorating like no one is watching! lol No more anxious thoughts!

Via

Alright, on to the project! Now, before anyone goes bonkers because I’m cutting up a vintage wool blanket, let me first tell you the reasons for my doing so. 😉

My Dad, was my very first hero and he was in the military, that makes me a military brat and today I’m a very proud Military wife.  I remember blankets like this one in my youth and have a few from Mr. Mans in my own linen closet.

I  cherish my memories of Dad using and having these heavy woollen grey blankets, since the beginning of my time. I asked Mom once if she minded me having them, she gladly gave them to me, saying,  “they’ve been sitting in that linen closet since your Father stopped going on exercise”. That was over 35 years ago. There were two blankets and one of them was stained and didn’t come clean with a good old fashioned washing. When I lugged them home I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do with them, not until the Christmas season started to roll in that is.Via

When the “popcorn” went off, I knew I wanted to take the stained blanket and make a Christmas pillow or two, I love the texture and colour of the blankets and to have one of Dad’s blankets around during the special Christmas season, well it just means a great deal to me.

One afternoon I was out shopping and I popped into Pier 1, while taking in all of the beautiful bits and pieces of that store, I spied some table decor, felt place mats… the idea struck right away. This pretty snowflake was going to be on my wool pillow. All Christmas decor was 20% off, so the $4 dollar price tag didn’t phase me. I bought one place mat and was excited to try out my idea.

I lugged out my sewing machine, dusted it first! 😉 It’s been a while… I used a pillow form I bought from Ikea and measured the wool blanket to fit the form.

I made a VERY simple square pillow with an envelope opening at the back of the pillow and, that opening closes with velcro. Easy as can be!

When the simple pillow was made I ironed my snowflake place mat onto some double-sided  infused webbing. I let that cool and used my x-acto knife to trim any extra webbing away from the snowflake. After it was all trimmed and pretty I peeled the paper backing off and I ironed it onto the newly made pillow envelope. I covered the flake with a tea towel and transferred it to the wool. Done and done…

Here is the finished pillow, sitting pretty on our porch bench. I just adore the way it turned out!

Well, I’m off to decorate like no one is watching… my next post will be our Christmas home tour, YIKES I better get a move on!

Thanks so much for popping in today!