Pillow Talk: DIY steps

I’m not a seamstress by any means. I’m actually quite awful with the sewing machine. Every time I even try to use it/learn how use it something always happens. Last time the machine just died on me. Perhaps it could feel that I hate it so and just gave up on life.

 

So when it comes to my sewing projects for clients I reach out to my favorite seamstress and get perfection every time. Due to a time crunch and in the hopes of saving some money I decided to have my pillows made by someone local who always helps me out for FREE. Who is my local help? That would be Jon! We both took Home Ec in high school and for some reason he did brilliant and I had to go after school to finish my already crooked apron.

 

Well Jon decided that it wasn’t helping me to have him do all the sewing instead of me learning on my own. So he did the first one and the rest were all me!

 

In September I made a trip to Roberta Roller Rabbit and instead of purchasing pillows or yardage of fabric I bought napkins at $8 a piece.

 

I then ordered some white canvas fabric for the backs of my pillows and picked up pillow forms at JOANN's at 50% off.

 

I’ve had all of those supplies sitting in the guest room since this Fall. Talk about procrastination. Last Saturday night I vowed to not go to bed until the pillows were made. I was up till 2:30am sewing, but I finished them.

 

Now originally I had thought I would put zippers on the pillow cases so that they could be removed and washed. Well when push came to shove that just seemed too hard. Luckily for me I found this tutorial to help me.

 

First step: Take your napkin and lay it fabric side up.

 

Second step: Take your white canvas fabric (Or what ever you are using for the backing) and cut 1 piece to be exactly half of the length of the pillow. Then cut another piece a couple of inches longer. No need for exact measurements just make sure it’s a little bit longer.

*See how my piece to the right extends past the napkin. That’s the extra length that we needed.

 

Third Step: Now since the back of the pillow is going to look like an envelope of some sort you are going to have two exposed edges so very quickly I sewed a straight stitch down each piece of white canvas.

Fourth Step: You will now have your napkin pattern side facing up and two pieces of white canvas each with a hemmed side.

The smaller of the white canvas pieces gets placed first directly on top of the napkin and then the larger white canvas piece gets placed on top of the that. With hem sides facing towards each other.  Now you can pin everything together!

 

* This picture is with another napkin, but it just gives you a better idea of what the pillow should look like when you are pinning it.

Fifth Step: Once everything is pinned just run it through the sewing machine. So easy!  Flip it inside out and you are done. Now you just need to stuff it with your pillow form!

 

Sixth Step: Once the pillow form is inserted the pillow still may need a little extra to fill it up. After all napkin sizes aren’t normally the exact size of pillow form so I used some left over quilting batting to wrap around the form.

Overall it was an REALLY EASY project and I was able to do it!

 

Granted it took me a while, because I did 5 pillows and had to do all the cutting, hemming, stitching and had a couple of breakdowns along the way, but it was totally worth it. Now I know exactly what I’m doing and looking forward to making many many more.

 

A big thanks to A Home in the Making  for all the great tips and steps!

 

As if this post couldn’t get any longer I just need to add that I’m super excited that my guest room made it on to Design Sponge!

 

For some reason it’s not uploading for me on my computer, but I was able to see it on my iphone.