Several months ago I had a friend give me these beautiful pillows. He had been over for dinner and mentioned that he had the perfect cushions for my white furniture.

His wife, who had passed away, did upholstery plus made these pillows for custom orders. He had four left and I came home one day and they were on the couch in my lanai. Wow!

Each design is a different letter plus each letter has a different meaning. I found a nautical flag chart on google and these pillows from left to right, are J for Juliet, “vessel on fire, stay clear”, M for Mike, “I am stopped”, W for Whiskey “require medical assistance”, and C for Charlie “Yes”.

I have to admit, I do not leave them out because they are amazing and I don’t want them to get dirty. Doesn’t matter how careful one is, this is Florida. All kinds of dust, dirt, and pollen flies around all year. Plus the bugs and lizards. Yeck!

I only bring them out when I have company. Which is how another couple that lives on the other side of the Homosassa River saw them and wanted to take them home.

Nope. Not happening.

But I decided to make a set for them for Christmas. How hard could it be? I make pillows and cushions all the time! Of course, I only had a week to get the fabric and put the pillows together before I was presenting them on Christmas Eve.

Here are S for Sierra, “Engines going astern”, M, and C. Their monogram.

And how did I make them? First I really checked out how the original four pillows were put together. No zipper and no apparent way of getting the pillow form inside. I think it was some kind of upholstery magic. Beyond my skill level! I had originally thought I would piece them like I do with quilts but on inspection, they were actually layered. So that’s what I did with the two pillows on the left. The last pillow on the right is pieced.

Next step was to draw them out on graph paper to get the correct sizes for all the pieces.

I bought the canvas at hobby lobby. One yard of each color plus a yard of an off-white canvas that I put on the back. I considered putting in a zipper along one side but went with the envelope style pillow case. The original pillows are 18″ with a 2 1/2″ flange. I made these 16″ with a 2″ flange. I didn’t put the yellow piping on because I doubted that my domestic sewing machine could get through all the layers. I also skipped the grommets in the corners because of the time crunch. Didn’t want to make a mistake and not have time or fabric to fix!

The big issue I had was getting the flanges mitered. I’ve done this before but I seemed to have gone brain dead that week. When I finally figured out how to do it I just went “duh”.

My friends were thrilled with them. And I was happy that they turned out so nice! And I probably should make some more before I forget how I did it!

One last pic, last week I posted a photo of the birds in my canal and mentioned how the wind blows the water in and out during the winter. This is the same spot! The wind was blowing in a different direction. We received warnings about possible flooding and the local restaurants and bars closed down. Some of the streets were flooded but we were okay. The perils of waterfront living!