During a photo shoot up north last year, Susie stayed at our terrific friend Julie’s house. When I was complaining to Julie about having difficulty sleeping and waking up congested, she recommended that I try a wool pillow as wool is hypoallergenic. In fact, she had made some and gave me one to take home with me! When Susie saw that I received a wool pillow, she was a bit jealous. While at Julie’s she’d slept on one of the pillows and really liked it. So when it came time to think of the perfect Christmas gift for her, a handmade wool pillow came to mind.
Because we didn’t have any fleeces available, I contacted Spinderella’s Fiber Mill to see if they had any wool that they could process for me. Fortunately they had some wool and alpaca batts ready to go and promptly shipped them out to me. I paid for 2lbs of batts which was enough to make one pillow; Lynn didn’t want to break up a batt and the batts were a little heavy, so she sent me overweight batts for free. It was very kind of her!
Then I want to Julie’s house so that she could show me how to make a pillow from the batts. She had made a tutorial for Spinderella’s that they posted on facebook, so I knew that I would be in good hands. The quality of cotton is very important in making sure that the stray fibers don’t escape from the pillow. I went with Kona Cotton, which has a tight weave.
This batt was both wool and alpaca and I just loved the different colors that were combined:
The finished pillow is soft and full and stuffed to the gills!
It will flatten and felt a bit over time. I flip my pillow regularly to help prevent it from getting too flat. I definitely enjoy sleeping on a wool pillow; it’s a small bit of luxury. Every once in awhile, I get a glimpse of the printed cotton that Julie choose for my pillow and it makes me smile every time and think of Julie and that she cares enough about me that she wanted to give me a piece of herself in a handmade package. I hope that I passed that love onto Susan with her own pillow!
