A place to rest your head

Due to the awesome generosity of my department head at work I now have a hammock in our backyard. Once we got the ant invasion MOSTLY taken care of (some reappeared in force this weekend) I was able to actually spend some time in said hammock. By some time I mean I spent all afternoon in the hammock a couple weeks ago reading. That got me thinking that I needed an outdoor friendly pillow that I could leave outside if I so desired without worrying overmuch about damage due to the crazy amount of rain we've been getting here in VA recently. I remembered seeing an idea on pinterest that used kitchen towels and up-cycled plastic bags to make an outdoor pillow. So I decided to do that! Only I put a different crafty spin on it.

I have a LOT of yarn to use. So I decided instead of using dish towels I would crochet the case. So that's what I did! I chained 52 using a J hook and cotton yarn, half-double crocheted in the 3rd chain from hook and across. Chained 2 and turned and kept going until I had the length I wanted.. or in this case ran out of yarn.  I then made a matching back and crocheted three of the edges together with a single crochet.

I then pulled out the gigantic bin of plastic bags we had and dumped them out. I picked a bag that was closest to the size of the pillow case I made (in the future I will make the case to the size of a bag instead of having to find a bag the correct size). I then picked another back to go within the bigger bag- since the size of my case required a lot of bags- and started stuffing it with the plastic bags. I decided to fold the bags lengthwise so I could get more bags within the bag and therefore the case. When I filled it to the amount I wanted I folded over the top and stapled it in place. I put that stuffed bag within the other bag and made another stuffed bag. Once that was finished I stuffed it in the bag with the other one and stapled that shut. I placed the gigantic bag with the two stuffed bags into the case and crocheted the case shut. Check out the slide show below to see pictures of the process.




I haven't had an opportunity to use it since I completed it- its just been too hot- and then the ants invaded again. But I will! And if I leave it outside it won't be a big deal!