Here is the pillow I made during the film festival. I used a standard size pillow for the inside. The cover is single crochet using a double strands of a terry-like acrylic yarn.

I made one large rectangle. I constructed the cover like a pillow sham with the last seam in the middle of the back.

I squared off the corners on the inside so the pillow has become a bar-of-soap shape with square corners. I thought that I should have decreased and increased to make the square corners instead of just folding each corner flat and stitching across the resulting triangle, but this worked out much better. All the extra fabric inside the pillow corners adds stability that helps the pillow keep its shape. I made the cover just a little smaller than the pillow so it would be firm-ish. Once I jammed the pillow inside I sewed the seam shut with a big plastic needle and the blue yarn. I'll just take out the seam to take off the cover for washing. I didn't want to put buttons or anything on it for a closure.

My husband says the pillow feels like a stuffed bear and has started calling it the teddy pillow. :)


Philadelphia Film Festival Rundown

I love the film festival, but everything else in my life stops. After 10 movies in as many days, I am ready for everything to be back to normal. Here are the last four movies we saw:

7. The Proposition (Australia/UK) - Written by Nick Cave, this Western set in 19th century Australia is brutal, visually stunning, and has a great soundtrack. My favorite bit of dialogue:

Samuel Stote: What is a misanthrope?
Arthur Burns: A misanthrope is someone who hates humanity.
Samuel Stote: Are we misanthropes?
Arthur Burns: No. We're family.

As soon as I heard this quote, I whispered to my husband that it's now our family motto. I think it's going to become a cross-stitch sampler or something.

8. Next Door [Naboer] (Norway) - The set design on this movie was incredible. The colors, the details, everything was just perfect. Some incredibly creepy and scary imagery. Oh-so-violent. I thought the movie was great. Andrew, not so much. He thought they started strong and then took a rushed and familiar way to the end of the movie. I thought it was a little rushed, but I forgive a lot since it was pretty and creeptastic.

9. Hard Candy (USA) - Andrew and I are still discussing this one days later - and that is always a good thing. Is the movie itself good? No.

10. Out of Hand (Germany) - I was totally impressed. If this movie was made in the US, there would be all sorts of hyjinks. It would be a high-energy, MTV kind of movie. Luckily, it wasn't made here. This movie portrays exactly what would happen if two teenage boys kidnapped a woman.