Pencil and Paper Bedding Set

 First off, thank you to Amy (of Nap Time Crafters) for hosting The Sew Off and giving me the chance to test my creative limits. Next, thank you for supporting my Checkerboard Dress. I'm thrilled to be back for the Sew Off Week 2 challenge which is Home Decor, this Pencil and Paper Bedding Set is my entry. Go vote until Sunday night for YOUR favorites, everyone is allowed to vote 1 time for their 2 favorite projects. 

Instead of patterns/tutorials I have worked with the dimensions of each item, thinking about how I wanted it to look like in the end, and taking seam allowances into account. For this project I have sewn several different items… 1 duvet cover and 5 pillows.

The duvet cover:
I made it look like a loose-leaf piece of paper, I got the idea from the Canvas Loose-Leaf Paper project from the "Improv Sewing" book (my son even made one, too), but I made it in gigantic proportion. So instead of 5 inches by 7 inches it was 5 feet by 7 feet! For the fabric I used 2 white twin size flat sheets. I sewed one red vertical line and 12 horizontal blue lines to create what looks like a loose-leaf piece of paper. Then I hand embroidered "Goodnight" in black on one of the lines. To do that, I traced the letters using the Penmanship Print font (with disappearing ink marker), it was a bit cumbersome doing the hand embroidery with this huge bed sheet laying across my lap. The duvet cover features a zipper at the bottom for the closure.

The pencil pillow:
I took a rectangular pillow: 12 inches by 16 inches and turned it into a pencil pillow. The fabrics used were: light pink cotton, silver ironing board cover fabric, yellow duck canvas, light brown linen, dark gray cotton blend, and the backing is in light brown linen. I also used stuffing to stuff the tip of the pencil. I did topstitching on the yellow pencil part in brown and on the silver metal part with shiny silver metallic thread.

 The pencil pillow features a pocket in the back...

 ...to store pajamas!

 I also sewed 4 square envelope pillow covers: 2 with elementary school handwriting paper fabric {The Pixie Pops by Timeless Treasures Fabrics} and 2 with gold stars fabric {Goodnight, Spot by Andover Fabrics}. The gold stars are kind of fun because they go with both the school and the night themes.

 One thing that is really great is that this bedding set is gender neutral, it could be for a boy or a girl.

I only got a few work in progress photos while creating this project...

The twin flat sheet covered most of my living room floor, this was when I was drawing the 12 vertical lines before I topstitched them in blue on the sewing machine.

 Here I just finished the hand embroidery which consisted of backstitches and one French knot.

 Here are the different pieces of the pencil pillow before sewing them together.

I'll be completely honest with you, I'm a little bit nervous about this Week 2 challenge. I'm not as confident with sewing Home Decor (as I am with children's clothing) because I don't have a lot of experience sewing items for the home. But whatever happens I still plan on sharing next week's challenge which is sewing something for a woman, I'm working on an outfit for myself, and I can't wait to show it to you.

Happy weekend everyone !