Another Super Quick Christmas Gift

 A Portland Timbers Soccer Team Pillow.
Done as a no-sew fleece cover.

 I had a 20" Ikea pillow form - which is not lofty enough folks. Instead, I used a pillow form from a garage sale acquired pillow that was fuller.

To begin with, I bought enough polar fleece fabric to cover the pillow with fringe.
20" plus 3" fringe all around. 20 + 3 + 3 = 26". Fleece is generally 60" wide. I bought 27" aka 3/4 yard and had enough to cover one pillow.

I squared up my two pillow sides (back and front) and started cutting my fringe. 1 1/4" wide snipping 3 inches in. I used tape to make my snips even.

Then I folded one fringette back and snipped a small hole in the middle of the four layers and fed the end of the fringette through, thus securing it.

 When you have three sides done, slip your pillow form inside. If you need to cut more to tighten up the cover, this is your chance. Mine was fine and I continued flipping the end of the fringettes through the small slits.

 Twenty minutes. Promise. Easy peasy.

And off it went, mailed to Alaska and the only Portland Timbers Soccer team fan up in the far north.

Teeny Tiny Portland Timbers Lip Balm Case

  I might have had a moment...
A Portland Timbers moment.

 I made this teeny tiny zippered bag keychain doo-hickey for my daughter for her birthday. It's long and skinny and just right for lip balm.

My dear friends, Wandering Goods, out of Portland make this awesome lip balm out of all natural, non-gmo ingredients, lalalala. They sell at Saturday Market.

A couple of years ago, they scored a huge contract for a national hotel, supplying all their toiletries.
Last year they scored another gig, landing themselves into Safeway, a national grocery chain which is promoting more local, more natural items.
I get the Black Licorice Lip Balm. There is a faint smell and taste of licorice which I love. I've always loved licorice, but I can't have it as I'm allergic to all the ingredients - except licorice.
For a while, licorice tea helped curb the cravings but I find this is my go to nowadays.

And then I went on to sew a few more (now in the etsy shop!), playing with sizing.

This is the first one I made, following this free pattern on craftsy. It would be great for EOS lip balm that comes in a fat ball.
 

Then I made one longer, following this tutorial for a lip balm pouch.

I liked this one better. Instead of cutting two pieces for the outside and lining, it's all one piece now. With the split piece, you can orientate your directional fabric so both are pointing up (or down).
 

But I find it doesn't matter. One less piece to cut out. And I like that there is no seam on the bottom on the outside or on the lining.

However, this one was kinda fat for a skinny lip balm.
So I narrowed it down a bit and now it's cool.


You could carry all sorts of small items in these - from lip balm to a bit of cash, to change.

These are so fun!
Very quick to sew.


My info: Lip balm: cut fabric 4 x 5.

EOS size was 3.5 x 5 (x2) joined seam.

Fat tube was 5 x 5.

Key Fobs

 I saw these key fobs a couple of weeks ago in my instagram feed and needed to make some myself. 
 

You need a zipper and some extra pulls.

They are perfect for key fobs because they use up scraps and they provide endless zippering for fidgety people (moi).

On the longer blue one you can slide the pulls up to make a secure wrist strap. On the smaller ones that fit into your hand, they are especially fidgety-worthy.

The length of the strap depends on the length of your zipper tape. You're gonna use one side and loop it around. You sew some bias tape - I folded and ironed fabric in half and then in half again and then sewed it down one side. I reinforced the tape with interfacing.

Then you slide your pulls back on, in any order, in any amount.

After fussing with those, you then clamp the key fob hardware on.
Done.

I used Atkinson Zipper pulls.
They come in colors. If you have an excess of zippers, you can pull them off and re-use.
Try to stay within the brand. The YKK brand pulls worked well with the YKK zipper tape. I felt like I was struggling more with the Coats & Clark brand zipper.

For the Portland Timber's, I use a 10" zipper. For the blue wrist strap, I think that zipper was 22" long.

Here's a little video by Erin Erikson on how to reattach your pulls:







One of the Portland Timbers Key fobs is winging its way north to DD.

My question du jour?  How much would you charge for one of these cute things?