Suddenly, Seamstress!

It's been a slow month. I'm waiting to board my plane back to the States (less than 2 weeks!) and eating muesli and yogurt like there's no tomorrow. Or calories.
We're still chugging through putting together our newly bought furniture from Ikea. I've posted the second chapter of Anomaly and I'm pulling together my plot bunnies for the third. I've been on the computer probably more than is healthy, in a trance induced by fanfiction and Internet radio (Jango) playing Massive Attack, Muse, Radiohead, and Daft Punk. Pandora, unfortunately, has fallen out of my favor, due to its advertisements between music, listening and skip limit, and, most importantly, inability to work outside of the US.
So in the meantime, I've been doing a bit of sewing. Planning on knitting an MIT scarf during the semester, but otherwise, I've made myself one of those oh so popular circle scarves that American Apparel seems to be whoring out on their weird models.

And yes, that is a pillowcase. But it's warm and cozy, so I don't really care. I'll make a proper one that I can loop around my neck twice out of fluffy material when I get back to a place with a nice English fabric store.

Also, I've been revamping a pillow that I made when I first started sewing (8-9 years ago...?). I originally had a screened ballet fabric with pointe shoes and blue ribbons on a pink background, and the edges were a lovely pink satin frill. Except I, being the beginner seamstress I was, decided to leave 1" margins and had stitches miles apart. Yeah, it was pretty bad, and hung loosely about the pre-made pillow. My second attempt, using polyester filling instead of a bought pillow and a sewing machine, turned out much better, and my brother still uses that pillow today.
 I now know that pillows, unlike clothes, actually work best when their cases are barely big enough, so that the pillow "fills up" the case more and thus looks fluffier and doesn't have that unnerving empty clothspace. So I tore off the old case, washed the pillow inside, and used some velveteen fabric I had lying around from one of my aunt's projects to make a pillowcase, and sewed the pillow inside.

I couldn't find any ribbon or actual bias tape to do the edges in. So, I turned to my crafty DIY engineer alter-ego and found a substitute: Lanyards. Couldn't find two of the same color that I liked, so I went with a sky blue BASF lanyard and a dark blue Bluecross/blueshield lanyard. It turned out nicely, and I suppose you wouldn't know the difference if you weren't actively looking.
I can't remember the last time I did so much sewing by hand. Maybe that time I made a set of Gryffindor robes when I was 10? Our old Singer sewing machine remains in SC for the time being, but I made it through nonetheless with only needle, thread, and fingers. Unpricked fingers, I may add.

P.S. Ignore my shirt. Hey, they offered to mail me a free shirt whether I accepted their offer of admission or not, and free clothes in my size aren't easily refusable.