Make-Believe Pillows

Having lion AND ostrich legs, Baba La-La doesn't quite fit into chairs. She prefers to hunker down in a pile of pillows. She's been known to snooze in her bathtub as well.

Suddenly, I became a seamstress. I'm an excellent dishwasher; I scrub porcelain until it sings; my Dyson and I have just celebrated our first anniversary; and, of course, I cook and mix concoctions. All of the other finer points of domesticity escape me. I have a particular fear of needle and thread. Exhibit A: The Quilting Incident at Charles Drew House, 1989. Enough said.

Back against the wall, I turned to my mother. While she raised me in thunderstorms, big ships and foreign lands, her childhood in Wisconsin was much more traditional. She spent time on a farm and often mentions her time in the Brownies. My logic was: if you know how to milk a cow, you know how to sew a pillow. She seemed like she knew what she was talking about. Here are the steps I was given:

• draw matching shapes out on fabric
• cut around lines, leaving a 1/4 inch leeway
  
• face the exteriors inwards and pin together
• stitch along lines, stopping an inch away from completion
• turn pillow cover inside out
• stuff with toilet paper
  

Everything went well until I asked how to finish the pillow and close up that inch of gap. She seemed flummoxed at that. I asked her how she had finished her pillows.

Her Mother: "Oh, I've never made any pillows."
Spinner: "What?! How did you know all this stuff?"
Her Mother: "I've watched them do it a million times on Trading Spaces."

So, my pillows have inch-long scars where they were finished off with my clumsy fingers. My mother comforted me with the words, "No one's going to actually sleep on them. It's OK, they're only make-believe pillows."