The road to hell is paved with feathers

You know that expression, the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Well, good intentions look like feathers! My husband had a nice feather pillow that he really liked, it was rather firm for a feather pillow but that's what he likes. Anyway, it finally died, the ticking just gave up the ghost. I stuffed the pillow in a bag because I figured there might be a use for the feathers some day. Never throw anything away, right? Yeah....

Well, I bought him a new pillow but it was just too soft. So, I thought I'd just take apart a small section and stuff some more feathers in there. After all, I had a whole pillows' worth of feathers. Simple! Ha!

I took apart a fist sized section of the new pillow and opened up the bag that had the old pillow in it. I started grabbing feathers and stuffing when I discovered that the old pillow actually had a sort of feather infused mat as well as being stuffed with feathers. I carefully tore the old pillow apart inside the plastic bag to get a better look at things. There were two of these mats, sewn into the pillow seam and then the inside was stuffed full of feathers. This mat was what had given the old pillow it's firmness. So I thought I'll just take these two mats and stuff them in the new pillow on the 'outside'. Simple! Ha! Ha! Again.

Here's a shot of the feather mat

See? In the beginning of the project, the feather mess wasn't too bad.

To do this, I had to undo the new pillow seam all along one side. So I did and then stuffed one of the mats in there. Hmmm. This wasn't going to work so well. The mat didn't want to stay in place, it would have to sewn in. So I tried that. Now keep in mind that I really hate sewing, especially with a machine. Every sewing machine ever made has a grudge against me and will very rarely work properly. This project was no exception. There I am, trying to get the two sides of the pillow ticking, the piping that was used and the mats to line up and stay lined up long enough for me to pin them. So not going to happen!!

By this time, there are a considerable amount of feathers spread around my project. And the couch, and the dog. So I figure it's a lost cause at this point (keeping the feathers contained) so I might as well go whole hog. I went digging and found a very unused king size pillow sham. Unused because I never use those things. Aha! New pillow. I sewed up the middle opening of that, cut off the end and turned it inside out so the extra, floppy part of the sham was inside. I probably should have been a bit more thorough on this but by this time I had had enough and just wanted the project finished and gone. I then tacked the feather mats together and stuffed them in the pillow sham and sewed one end into the sham. Then I stuffed that puppy full (probably too full) of feathers and sewed the other end shut, getting hopefully most of that end of the feather mat included in the seam. I then put that in a pillow cover, an old pillow case and then the final pillowcase that goes with the sheets. I don't want to have to wash this thing very often, I don't really trust my sewing skills here or the integrity of the feather mats. I also don't want the 'new' pillow ticking getting worn. I want this pillow to last a long time because I am not doing this again!

 Here's the final product and some of the mess around the couch.