I have more than one block pillow that I bought from SMP Lace, these are
made from high density polystyrene, the type that is the tiny balls fused
together. Because it is High Density the holes made by lace pins tend not to
destroy the pillow too much so that the pillow has quite a long life.
One thing I never use on my block pillows are the usual divider pins as they
are quite thick and make a large hole in the pillow. I buy some long glass
headed pins which tend to be pretty fine and use those as dividers instead.
Some haberdashers sell pins that are long and fine with pearly tops to them,
here they sell them individually but they come on a card.
The first one of my block pillows was bought about 15 years or more ago and
is still going strong with the original blocks. For the first 10years or so
I used the same side of the blocks everytime then when they began to be a
bit dented in their centres from continual use I just turned each block over
to give me a fresh surface to work on.
As SMP are in the UK and I am in Spain I thought that to have a made up
pillow sent by post would be costly so I just ordered the bare blocks and
side pieces, by bare I mean uncovered blocks. It also works out much cheaper
to buy the component parts and do the work yourself. You can also buy spare
blocks so that you can interchange those on your pillow.
I covered the side pieces by taking the fabric over bottom edges of the
piece and pinning it to the underside, putting the pins in at an angle so
that they did not pull out as I continued pulling the fabric taut over the
rest of the side piece. The blocks I covered by pulling the fabric taut and
making a seam along one of the side edges of the block and slip stitching
the seam closed. The ends of the blocks I made a sort of rectangular flap
rather than a triangular envelope type of end, which I stitched into place.
I would recommend stitching the covering fabric rather than pinning into
place on the blocks, it makes a much neater finish.
Then once I had the blocks and 2 side pieces covered with some plain blue
sheeting I laid them together
on a sheet of plain paper, making sure they were snugly together without
gaps. Then I drew around the whole pillow shape to give me a pattern to
take to the local carpentry shop to get a base cut. If you use a carpenters
pencil, which has flat sides to it, you get a more accurate line because
that pencil's lead will get right up to the base edge of the pillow pieces,
a round pencil will not and there will be a little gap between the line and
the pieces. I asked the carpenter to cut just inside the pencil line by
about one millimetre so that the sides and blocks would overlap the base by
a tiny tiny bit, rather than the wood base protrude out around the edges of
the pillow parts.
To glue the sides pieces in place I used the white PVA glue, wood glue,
because that does not burn holes in the polystyrene. I glued the side
pieces to the base board and put some plastic kitchen film down the centre
on which I sat the blocks and could then push the side pieces into place and
close up to the blocks so that it was all snug. The plastic film protected
the blocks from any glue that oozed out from under the side pieces as I
pushed them into place. The glue is water soluble anyway so any excess can
be rubbed away with a damp cloth, and it dries transparent but I didn't want
the blocks to end up glued into place by any escaping glue.
Once everything was in place and I was happy with it I tied some soft cotton
tape around the pillow width, over the blocks and the sides going underneath
and tied a knot at the side down near the edge of the base board and side
pieces so that it did not leave a dent in the surface of the pillow. I put
two tapes, one around near the top end of the pillow and one near the bottom
end. This would hold everything tightly in place until the glue dried. I
then put the pillow on something clean on the garage floor, an old curtain
or sheet of paper, to keep it clean and then put a clean sheet of white
paper over the top, could be a clean piece of fabric, but make sure there
are no wrinkles to dent the pillow parts, I put a spare bit of board on the
top of that and weighed it all down with a couple of 5 or 8 litre carafes of
bottled water placed so that they sat over the side pieces rather than in
the centre on top of the blocks. I left it for at least 24hours to dry out
before taking out the blocks and removing the plastic film from under them.
My pillow was ready to use.
I think Russell Perrin at SMP still sells the pillow parts, e.mail him via
his site to ask. I know he sells the complete pillows made up and also spare
blocks but I am not sure about the side pieces. He no longer makes the
parts himself as he sold the machinery for doing so some time ago but he
still sells the same parts which he now buys from those that have that
machinery.
Regards
Jenny DeAngelis.
Spain.
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