Pillow Talk

It's not all bathroom and honeybees around here.  I have gotten in the occasional crafting project or two.  Something that I've wanted to change for awhile were the pillows in the living room.  The pastel greens and blues I got from Pier 1 just weren't doing it for me anymore.


I found some fabrics from places like fabric.com and etsy and kept pinning them until I found four that I liked together.  I wanted some bold patterns and bright colors, and something to match my honeycomb pillow


I fell in love with the floral fabric first and found patterns in colors that coordinated with that.  

Yellow Chevron (etsy) & Richloom Solarium (fabric.com) Blue and white fabric (Joann's) & Amy Butler Lotus Wall Flower Cherry (fabric.com)

Most of the pillows were made with the basic 'machine sew 3 1/2 sides together and stuff pillow insert in and hand sew hole', except for the reddish lotus one which I made an envelope case for.  I'm not sure if I didn't overlap them enough, but the back kinda stays open.  I've got to figure out how to make a button hole on my fancy sewing machine and sew some buttons to keep it close.

The only other fancy thing I did was the navy blue trellis pillow isn't actually printed fabric.  I cut and sewed the pattern with white fabric onto some blue fabric.  Crazy? You betcha.  But, I couldn't find any blue/white trellis indoor fabric that was in my budget, so I made my own, and I felt more comfortable sewing than painting.

I started with a picture of the design that I found through Google,


Then printed it out the size I wanted to fit my 18" pillow form.  After I had the paper pattern, I cut it out and transferred it to white fabric that I had backed with some sewable iron-on adhesive, specifically Heat'N Bond Lite, (the purple colored one).


I then cut it out again and ironed it onto the blue fabric.  Many would stop there, but not me, no, I'm crazy and decided to sew along the edges for extra protection.      


This is probably the most delicate pillow we have, and we're pretty tough on them, and I haven't seen any fraying yet. If I were to do it again, I would probably have sewn a zig zag stitch along the edge to prevent the fraying, but I'm not that skilled on the sewing machine, yet.

Overall, I'm excited for the new look in the living room.  And, for under $20 a pillow, the feel of the room is completely different, and definitely more us.  Now, I just have to convince Mike to let me repaint the room and hopefully I can call this room done, for now.

1 comment

  1. Wow, I am impressed with your mix of colors and patterns. And in awe of your detail work on the blue and white pillow. Great job, Mal!

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