Awesome Flower Pillow

I shared this tutorial as a guest post over at My World Made by Hand, and I thought that my readers should also get the great tutorial!

Today I am going to share a sewing project with you. It is for this Fabulous Flower pillow. I made a pink one for my girl and liked it so much that I made this cream one for me!

Supplies:
Pillow
Fabric - yardage depends on the size of your pillow - I used about 1 yd here
Sewing machine and accessories

 The first thing you need to do is take your pillow and in my case trim off that lovely trim. I got my pillow at the thrift store and gave it a good washing. Much cheaper than a pillow form.

 I then measured how big it was across my pillow and then added an extra 1/2 inch and cut a circle out of my fabric. As you can see this circle is not quite a circle, but it will work.

 I then cut the remaining fabric into strips. I used about 5 strips and they were 2 inches wide. You can vary this for a different look. On my pink one I cut the strips 3 inches wide.

 

I then sewed all of the strips together into one big long one. I then folded it in half, so that I did not have a raw edge for the flower. (You could do one like that and make it look a little bit shabby.) After that I took one end and folded it over like in the above picture and sewed it down to make a point.

I started on the outside on my circle, and sewed almost one inch from the edge. I just free handed it with the ruffles, tucking the fabric as I went along. At this point was where I was really wishing I had one of those rufflers that will make the ruffles for me - maybe someday.

When I had made it around the circle once, I continued to sew and kept my edge overlapping right to the middle of the row I had just sewn.

I then continued to sew until I got close to the middle. I then just tacked the fabric down and continued to twist it until it looked good. This part is kind of had to explain - I hope that the pictures make up for it!

 Then I trimmed my fabric to where I thought was good. I made another triangle fold on the end so that I did not have any loose ends, then I tacked it some more - okay maybe a little bit too much, but I am sure that it will hold!

When I was finished with my flower side I sewed it onto the back side with about 1/2 inch seam allowance. The flower you just sewed will be on the inside. I left a 6-8 inch opening making it like a pillow case. Then I flipped it right side out and stuck my pillow inside of its 'case'.

I then stitched the opening closed and done! This one was a little bit more time consuming then my first one, but I wanted it a little bit different. That is the beauty of this pillow, you can change one simple thing and it changes the look!

 Tell me that pillow is not to funnest thing ever! And here is a picture of the pink one on my daughter's bed.

Flower pillow

I am lucky to have this project done. With the weather we have been having - below 0 temps, but not much snow - school has been canceled the last two days, and it is too cold to go outside, and I have 5 wild and crazy kids home. But last night I prevailed and got it done. This is going to be going on Thing #2's bed, when it is all done. I made it with the leftover fabric from the back of her quilt. I just thought that maybe you would like to see the quilt so I will take a picture of her quilt that I finished last year so that you can see it later. (Aren't I so nice.) ;) You can see the quilt here.

 I have seen these ruffle flower pillows everywhere and I just figured I could make them. This pillow is what we started with. It was $1 at the thrift store, and I loved the round shape of it and that is was not to firm. It was just perfect for this kind of project.

I just measured it and cut my top and bottom and side pieces out. I then cut a long strip 3 inches wide and folded it in half, and then started sewing in the middle and went out from there. In looking at it now I wish that I had ruffled the middle more, but I am not going to pick it out. It will just have to do.

I am going to add a little covered button to the center, because I do not like how it looks just plain and because I do not like to see all the stitches in the middle.

I have plans to make 2 more pillows for her bed in addition to a sham, and I have painted half of her bed. I have just under 2 months to get this done - so I have plenty of time. hahaha, because I know I will be busting my butt at the last minute.

Updated 2/15/11I just found the bloggers pillow party and wanted to add my fun pillow to it.  I am not sure if I answered all of the questions so I will here to comply by the rules. I was inspired by all of the flowers that i see out there. I saw some done on pillows and knew exactly what I wanted to do! There is really no interesting techniques here. I gave some basic instructions in the beginning of the post, but this was a guess as you go kind of thing! ;) I already shared that this was made for Thing #2, when I get all of her bed stuff done.

Now check out this pillow party, because there are some beautiful things out there!

For the complete tutorial go here!

Upcycled Pillow

In our house we use throw pillows a lot - and as their name implies we use them to throw. Conan and a few of the kids love to throw these pillows at each other. Well I decided that since these pillows are hardly ever going to be used for decorative purposes, I did not want to spend a ton of money on them. So I set off to my local thrift store. I found this beauty for $1.50.

Because I have already used up my crafting budget for the month, I decided that I would use a few of the clothes that were in the pile for the thrift store to make the cover for this pillow. I cut the background from an old button down shirt that used to be Conans. I really liked this pillow here from the house of smiths and decided to try making mine like theirs:

So with that being my inspiration I took on ruffles again. I have to say it went much smoother this go around and I was done sewing the cover in under 10 minutes. I used the button part of the shirt for the back so that when you are putting it on and off the pillow form you just button and unbutton it. (I got this idea from someone else, but I cannot for the life of me remember where -sorry).

However, with just this blue it was lacking something. So I went to Thing #4's closet and pulled out a shirt that was not my favorite and a little small on him as well. I took this and made one of these flowers. I made it cutting a few squiggly circles of various sizes. Then I burned the edges to seal them - it was at this point that Thing #4 decided that he wanted that shirt back and asked me to sew it back together, that was not going to happen. I then was trying to find something to put in the middle that would complete the look but not b too fragile for throwing. When we were racking leaves I pulled out a stick and decided to cut button sizes pieces from the end. I did that and then painted them and gave them a little bit of aged look with some chalk ink. They don't quite match the blue of the pillow so I might go and change them later on, but they will do for now.

 

  And here we have the finished product - I decided that I would use a pin for the flower so that it could be removed to save it from being destroyed when the pillow is thrown.

 Linking up here: Creative Itch, Someday Crafts, Sugar and Dots, and Sew Much Ado.