manly nursing pillow

Prince Hawthorne was very kindly handed down a boppy nursing pillow from his aunt. Not that I disliked the fabric on it, which reminded me a bit of Sarah Jane artwork, but I thought he could use something manlier than kids frolicking in fields of flowers. 

After mulling over fabric choices for a while, ordering some Birch organic faux bois fabric for the top (also seen as my backdrop for the Debbie's dress photo shoot), and picking up some Indian Summer Menagerie fabric from Finch for the bottom, I decided that the fabrics didn't go together afterall. The background on the menagerie is pure white and the faux bois is off white. It displeased my eye. 

  

Essex yarn dyed black linen goes with everything though, and looks great with the menagerie. So I set the Birch stuff aside to be used as the backing for Hawthorne's Charley Harper quilt. I also added a red zipper from Finch for a pop of color. With the linen, it now matches most of the clothes I've made recently.

There are a lot of things wrong with the execution on this cover, but I still love love love it. It brings a smile to my face when I see it, which is a lot. This is a hungry boy. He sleeps on it pretty often too, and I use it to prop him up when we stick him in the middle of the kids' room to be admired during bedtime.  The girls use it to hold him on their laps. He has his dinner on it with the family at the dining table, which is why there are several places where I've dropped food on it en route to my mouth.

Having never really done zippers on anything before, I thought "hey, it would be great to add a semi-exposed zipper to this thing...since I'm such an expert on zipper sewing and everything". 

I got the zipper in, but the ends are pretty funky. And it jacked with the seam allowance in the top section, making it too tight through the top. The ends are kinda saggy. I suppose it resembles the way most things fit on my mom body. Go me! 

But it works. And the Sir now has a more Sirly backdrop to the first months of his life. 

Hawthorne is a month old!