Proverb Pillow Talk

NEW Proverb Pillow Talk series... It Takes Two... pillow design with lots to say! A month-long hand stitching extravaganza started with an idea from my sketchbook.

It is important to keep my sketchbook filled up with ideas and inspirations. Later on, when I am ready for creating, it is easy to look through the sketchbook to jump-start action into making the next project. My new pillow series will be about proverbs that have been growing out of my mind like a root looking for moisture, in this case, a pillow or two!

'It Takes Two...' and who has not heard this proverb...

•  to love 
• to argue 
• to make babies

Yin Yang (Harmony of Dualism) shows we are opposites and yet complimentary. Yang is the male color white represented by the sun and the Yin is the female color black represented by the moon both entwined within a circle of life. 'It Takes Two...' is a proverb and a part of the Yin Yang theories. 

Watch a video below to get insight into the principles and history of the Yin Yang theory. 

Another symbol represented on my pillow is the fertility signs of male and female astronomy notations of the Greek Gods & their planets Mars (male) and Venus (female). 

The fertility symbols are needle felted with roving wool in blue and pink also mixed within each other but one color is more predominant. North American culture has designated pink for girls and blue for boys... why? 

Written 1918  in the Ladies Home Journal there was a fashionable influence choosing blue for GIRLS as it is DELICATE,  cool, and relates to Yin, the moon, shadow, and rest. Pink was for BOYS as anything with red is considered STRONG, warm and relating to Yang, the sun, bright, and active. 

Fashion in the 1940s switched the colors and for some reason who knows why but there was an active push through magazines to designate Pink for girls and Blue for boys. 

As an artist who loves all colors, I also have to understand the symbolism that triggers emotions & myth.  Like it or lump it, this is communicating visually.

• The first step is to knit the pillowcase in dark blue 100% double-strand wool.
• Cut a rectangular black felt piece sized for embroidery and needle felt design.
• Chalk out basic design elements and add the needle felt outline.
• Fill in colors with roving wool by needle felting techniques.
• Embroidery stitches are hand-stitched into the needle felting.
• Attach applique with hand stitching to the flat pillow cushion.
• Attach the pillow to three corners with hand stitching.
• Stuff and stitch the last side of the pillow.
• Finish off with rows of crochet borders.
• Crochet the green fringe and weave orange wool through crochet borders.
• Make stuffed male & female dolls.
• Attach snaps to the pillow and dolls.

For many of my pillow designs, I like to add BLING, something unexpected so for this pillow, I knit 2 little stuffed dolls.  I found a doll pattern that uses smaller scraps of yarn. Fun to make dolls, check it out here...

I attached snaps to the back of the dolls and snaps to the front of the pillow for removal if need be.

I love fringe trims! As a child living in Europe, I was captivated by all the luxurious fringes on the drapes & furniture in Renaissance palaces. It takes a lot of fiber and time to make fringe but it adds posh to everything it edges. 

Here is the video to make a twisted fringe by Kristan that is easy to follow. FRINGE AWAY~

Finishing off a designer pillow is like reading an adventure story that I call a real page-turner. No two pillows I create are the same, learning something new in embroidery, crochet, knitting, and style that will catch attention where ever the pillows lay!

To see more of my past pillow designs... go to the link here.

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