Mama shakes the dreamland tree

Pillows & blankets are a big deal in the Rue household. One big snuggery around here!

I end up making lots of special pillows and blankies for the kids from things we recycle.

Ella's kitty pillow above is a vintage handmade bib on top of matelasse remnants I had from making her bedroom curtains. I found the old queen size matelasse at a local antique store for $5.00...priced so low because it had large rust stains running across it. An overnight soak in Oxyclean took care of that, I use Oxyclean on all of my delicate vintage linens.

The bib was found on Ebay for a couple of dollars with storage stains as well. Ella loves to look at Ebay and picked it out herself, at the time I had no idea what we would actually do with it! I cut off the bib ties and treated it like one large applique with little bitty, hard to see stitches to hold it in place.

A very back-lit photo of Ella's curtains from this morning, the sun says Hello to her room first. Love love love that ball fringe.

Our old pram is there, stuffed with all of her softies. That pram has been used for every baby in our family. I have a picture of my older brother looking like a little peanut in it from 36 years ago. When my son Finn was born, I relined it with a black & white toile. The last time it had been lined was in blue checks when my little brother was born in the early Eighties. It has a top...hiding somewhere in my messy house.

Now Finn wants more modern pillows. When he out grows a favorite t-shirt and is sad to see it go, I'll make a pillow out of it instead, just like the Spiderman one there. These make great soft, bonk someone on the head without guilt, pillows

Not that I usually feel too much guilt when I bonk someone on the head.

Cause, you know, sometimes you just have to.

His skull pillow is super simple all fleece. Fleece can make you feel good again about sewing when you've been frustrated by other fabrics. So soft...so freaking easy to work with. I just cut out the skull and appliqued it on the black background.

My next recycle the munchkin stuff will be a quilt, and maybe a pillow, of Ella's old dresses. She has had so many precious dresses that I just didn't want to give away, but I don't really have the storage room for them, so I've been cutting them up into tiny squares for a simple patchwork quilt.

I need to take a picture of the growing pile of dress squares...this might be a big quilt!