The Brief: A throw pillow for a young woman, “youngster setting out into the world of adulting with awesome dreams and aspirations with the power and will to make a real difference” with the chorus of the Brandie Carlisle song, Keep Your Heart Young on it. No knowledge of the colors, style, vibe of the room. Also, the giver of this gift does not want any notion of what I came up with or any photos - wants to be surprised after the recipient is surprised.
My thought process: I think having a pillow with words on it, maybe especially song lyrics, is a very specific choice. Also, the chorus is pretty long, so that’s a lot for the front of a pillow and budget would not allow for embroidering them all. So I decided on a neck roll (cylinder) pillow and too have the words going around and around! It also makes the colors and pattern of the print more subtle since it just peeks between the rows and is slightly visible through it the which I hope makes it more versitle with whatever the recipient’s taste is.
Don’t trade in your Tic-Tac box for a ball on the end of the chain
And don’t go spending grandpa’s pennies buying into the game
You gotta keep your heart young
Don’t go growin’ old before your time has come
You can’t take back what you have done
You gotta keep your heart young
I found a home dec cotton print that included both cool and warm colors, in a scale that seemed appropriate for the pillow form I found. I made bias tape for the lyrics and left the edges raw: the bias tape will not fray as nearly as quickly, but isn’t too precise or staid. The words go from bottom to top to symbolize moving up and growing in the world.
I made a file for my Cricut to cut the whole chorus into self-adhesive stencil vinyl which I then applied to the bias tape. I used textile medium mixed with a champagne gold craft paint on the stencil. The whole thing is almost 200" (508 cm) long!
The stencil method was pretty dang fiddly and tedious, but so much faster than stitching and more accurate than if I had free-handed it. Here are the weeded letters.
I would kind of love dessert plates that look like this, though!