Not strictly clothes, but clothes-related!

I can't post this on my own blog yet, because it involves Christmas presents. But I figured it's safe over here as long as I don't link it to my own blog!

I make clothes from scratch on a regular basis in addition to refashioning, and sometimes it's necessary for me to do a test version of a pattern. Which is great for the fit and has saved me plenty of tears from ruining pricier fabric, but I really hate chopping up fabric and "wasting" it on something that I can't wear for real. So I've been saving the muslins in hopes of being able to reuse the fabric.

This is the skirt muslin from a semiformal dress I made back in January--needed a "little black dress" to wear to a couple of weddings/the occasions I am involved in classical concerts, and I was taking a class on doing it semi-couture style on Pattern Review. (You can still see where I marked right on this test version.)

I recently found a tutorial here to make some herbal eye pillows. And when I saw that it's a muslin pillow with a pretty slipcover, I knew that this would be a perfect opportunity to use something like this. I did it as called for, except I also mixed some peppermint in with the lavender and flaxseed, because when I was googling this earlier, it said that's great for clearing sinuses and such. (Most of my headaches are allergy-related rather than stress.)

I made four of these pillows--one to test it on myself first, and three for gifts. The skirt had something like 6-8 panels, and I could get one complete pillow out of a panel, so I have some left if I make a few more of these later!

And these are the finished slipcovered pillows. All of the fabrics are 100% cotton prints that came from my scrap bin-- leftovers from a dress, a bedspread quilt, a large fabric swatch, and a bag. I think they turned out lovely, and they feel wonderfully cool and soothing against my face! So hopefully my relatives that I'm giving them to will like them. (And won't mind that I recycled never-worn clothing for them....shh!)

I'll be back to the regularly scheduled clothing refashions soon....just need time to sit down and finish that shirt.