Wirt and Greg, Are You Proud of Me?

I did it! I've finished the Over the Garden Pillows I set out to make almost two years ago. You know those projects that linger—unfinished—in your closet for years? This was one of those. The way these came out would make my little 12-year-old self proud. At that age, all the way into high school, I was making little applique art of whatever characters my friends and I were obsessed with at the time. I'd slap them on some item (usually a t-shirt), and give them as gifts. Looking back, my friends were unbelievably kind—even if it was just once or twice, they wore those dorky t-shirts to protect my tender little heart. If they hadn't done that, who knows if I'd still be crafting and gifting today!

For fun, I dug up some old projects (taken on my coolpix camera) to show you just how far(?) I've come. Not all the things I made have surviving photos, but here are a few:

You'll see I started to learn the importance of using fabrics that don't fray—like felt—or turning under the edges. I had one too many people tell me that what I made them fell apart in the wash. Maybe that was a kind white lie so they didn't have to be seen wearing it, but it resulted in me making much sturdier creations!

Mind you, this was before the YouTube of today, so there was no step-by-step guide or best practices for making every craft under the sun. Thus, over the years I developed my own methods that I still use to make similar items, which includes these Over the Garden Wall pillows!

Usually, I start out by finding an image I like. The easiest images to use have very distinct sections of solid colors, hence why I always end up going for cartoon characters. I then take those images and break them apart by color or distinct elements—such as Wirt's legs; I could have just used one piece of grey felt for both legs, but to make them visually distinct from one another, it made more sense to make two separate pieces. Once printed, these become my pattern pieces!

I would then take these fiddly pieces and trace them onto my fabric. If non-fraying, I would trace the shape as-is—but for pieces like the kettle, where I wanted to use a fabric with a bit of sheen, I had to cut two with a bit of seam allowance; I would sew these together and turn it right side out, thus encasing the raw edges.

Once they were all cut out, it was just a matter of sewing them together!

In the beginning I sewed them with a standard (albeit tiny) stitch, but at some point I realized it looked neater if I used a backstitch.

Like I mentioned before, I actually started these two-ish years ago, at which point I had finished the characters, but never decided on where to put them. Another T-Shirt? No...I was past that phase. In the end, I Ianded on decorative pillows! I liked the idea of having the two brothers be separate, but by re-uniting them, it would feel whole (eh? Get it? Like the show? Nevermind...)

I wanted to add a decorative border, and came up with a fall-like motif that was easily repeatable, which I then embroidered around the fabric. After the border was complete, I sewed the characters in place, sewed a brown backing fabric for the reverse-side of the pillow, turned it right sides out, and stuffed them. And voila! They were done! The corners came out a little wonky (pretty sure I clipped them?), but oh well. I took some close up shots so you can better admire my handiwork :P