Upcycled firemans uniform

I just finished one of the most unique custom orders that I have ever done. A wife brought me her husbands old firemans uniform. They had cut it up, planning to try to make a bag out of it, but then were overwhelmed and didn't know what to do. She thought of me and brought it to me asking if I could make it into a bag for Christmas to surprise him.
Upcycling is my fav, so yeah!
I came up with a design for a duffel bag.
Here is the result:

This is the bottom of the bag, I thought the leather knee would make a good support for the bottom.

 

I also went through 2 blades, 10 needles and lots of time with a seem ripper.

I even used the inside of the suit for lining. That is possibly the messiest material I have ever used. It was all over my dining room.

Fireman uniforms have really cool hardware, I would have loved to use, but they had cut it out so close I couldn't sew it onto this bag. This duffel bag is probably my all time favorite order!

 

Easiest Christmas Pillow EVER

I seriously needed some throw pillows for my couch. It sits too far back and is not that comfortable. I had seen a post a long time ago about making pillows from placemats, and being somewhat lazy about decorating my own house, decided I might try this. I tried to go back and find the post, only to find there are hundreds of posts on pillows from a placemat!

First I picked up a couple of really cute, fun placemats from Kohls for around $1-$2. However I did not take a before pic :(

 

It needs to be double sided

 

 

Using a seem ripper remove a section of stitching from the top center of the placemat, I just made sure my hand could fit into the hole. Then I used some stuffing I had from another project and filled it. I pushed the stuffing away from the opening and pinned it down. Then I used my sewing machine and stitched it back up, but you could do it by hand just as well. I have some really elegant placemats that I don't let anyone use because they might get dirty. I think they might just become pillows!