pillow talk

More holiday weekend craft times – accent pillow edition. The trellis fabric is from a thrifted apron (there’s enough for another pillow!) & the floral fabric has been kicking around the sewing boxes for so long that I’ve long since forgotten why I bought it.

Lazy sewing pillow tip!

I stole one of Sean’s old shirts to make an easy closure on the floral pillow – a nice way to reuse a shirt with a stain on the cuff or something.

1. The easiest way to do it is to measure your pillow form, and just cut the entire back from the shirt to size. Then, you just stitch up with right sides together, unbutton, turn right side out, and pop your pillow in. SO EASY.

2. But I wanted the back to be the same floral fabric, so I measured my pillow form and cut my top piece an inch longer on each side ( my pillow is 16″ x 20″, so I cut 17″ x 21″) – it’s a pillow, so you don’t have to get super crazy about seam allowance. Make it smaller if you want a super stuffed pillow.

3. Lazy cutting = ripping. I can’t cut a straight line to save my life, so I just make a little snip and rip on the grain. Obviously this works well on fabrics with an obvious grain / not bias / not knits. Ok.

4. If you’re not using the whole back of the shirt, cut out your button placket. Make sure to leave enough room for stitching, and don’t line up any buttons to be near the seams!

5. Cut the back piece of your pillow where you want to stitch the placket in. Don’t worry about measuring, we’ll trim the excess later.

6. Pin & stitch! Pin the placket closed at the bottom so your lines stay nice and straight. When you stitch this, make sure you’re far enough away from the edge of the placket – you cant see how far the top goes over and you don’t want to stitch it in.

7. After stitching both sides, press and topstitch. Keep that placket pinned shut! (Side note: If you really want the spacing on the sides of the placket to be even, be more careful than me when you sew.)

8. Put both your pillow sides together, right side facing, and trim off any extra on the back. Pin that up and sew around all 4 sides! Don’t worry about leaving an opening – your buttons will do!

9. Get those pins out, trim stray threads & corners, unbutton the placket, turn right side out, and stuff it! You’re done!

5 Comments

  1. These are gorgeous! I love the trellis pattern fabric.
    I usually make fold-over cushions because I hate how zips look (I don’t have a machine, so sewing my own button holes is pretty much out of the question) – using old shirts is a really good idea. I actually have a couple that I never wear, but couldn’t bear to part with, I knew they’d come in handy someday!

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