Beautiful bohemian pillows: Tutorial!

Beautiful bohemian pillows: Tutorial!

• 5.31.2011

I've shared inspiration and ideas before from Anthropologie and other places for beautiful work-of-art pillows--so small, but they have such an effect on a room!

When I was in a productive, scrap-busting mood the other day I made a couple of Anthro-ey pillows from my pile of pretty-colored scraps.  I did a tutorial for the Orimono pillow a while ago, and am happy to share another tutorial for a pretty appliqué one!

Here's the inspiration:

And here's a tutorial to do this yourself!

• Collect your pretty fabric scraps and leftover pieces...

• Cut a square 1" bigger than your pillow in both width and length.  I like my pillow covers to fit snugly, so for my 18" pillow I cut a 19" square.
• Cut out shapes that you want to appliqué on.  This rose print was a lovely home dec silk that my mom made a dress for me out of years ago.  I still have the scraps and was able to put them to good use!  I didn't have enough full roses to do more than one or two big stems, but I framed the pillow using the edge pieces and made a nice border out of it.  Arrange the shapes as you like.

• Pin your shapes down.  Lots of pins!  You could use spray adhesive on the back of the fabric first in lieu of pins, but I didn't feel like going outside to spray...

• Note: My pillow fabric, that woven stripe, was rather thin, so I reinforced it with a layer of quilting fabric I didn't want.  You can use muslin or whatever you like, but this extra layer will make your pillow last much longer.

• To the machine!  Sew your shapes down.  I recommend a zigzag stitch.  Go all the way around your appliqués.

• Great!  Now, you'll be ready to put on the zipper and attach to the back side of the pillow, if you have it done.  Again you'll need a square 1" bigger than your pillow form, and you can choose to make it plain or fancy.  I wanted to maximize my pillow stylings since I don't have room for lots of pillows but I did want to try out multiple Anthro pillow looks, so I did a fancy back.  I'll show you a tutorial for it soon!
• Attach your zipper.  I'm using an invisible zipper.

•  Open the zipper a few inches so you can reach your hand through, and sew the other three sides of the pillow.

•  Clip your corners...

• Press the three side seams flat, as much as you can.

•  Turn right side out, and put on pillow!

As I said, tutorial for the back side (and for other super cool pillow styles) coming up soon!