Anthro L-O-V-E pillow tutorial

Anthro L-O-V-E pillow tutorial

• 7.12.2011

I've been really into creative and funky pillows recently, loving using up my scrap pile and making beautiful stuff to brighten my living room.  You may remember tutorials in the past couple months for the following...

This pillow:

Its other side:

This pillow:

And its back:

Of course I am inspired by Anthropologie's amazing pillow collection.  One that I'm happy to show you a tutorial of today is one that I think is no longer for sale.  I saw it recently on their homepage as part of a room,  but they don't sell it and I'm guessing it's a few seasons old.  Does anyone remember?

Well, I decided it would be fun to try to make one like it!

Here's a tutorial!

You will need:

• Pillow form
• Base pillow cover fabric (2 pieces, each slightly more than the size of your pillow, e.g. 16"x20")
• Zipper (I prefer invisible ones)
• Scrap fabrics to choose from
• Fabric marker or pencil
• Spray adhesive and/or pins
• (and sewing machine, iron, and scissors, of course!)

Steps:

• Same as always, start with your pile o' scraps.  I like to pull them all out and look at them at once to decide what looks good together.

• Pick a base/background fabric.  To be like the original I used a light tan solid, but you could use any cool fabric you want.  Something sturdier than quilting cotton is best.  Cut out your rectangle 1" bigger in length and width than your pillow form.
• Sketch out where you want your letters to be.  I used fabric marker and played around with the shape and placement of the big letters.  You may want to try with pencil and paper first to get the idea.

• Pick out the fabrics you want to use for each letter.  Again, I copied the original, but you could get really creative and have a lot of fun.  You could do a theme, even!
• Placing the fabric over the letters you've drawn, cut the fabric along the shape of the sketches.  Get the basic shape first, then go along and trim off little bits so they match.

• Use spray adhesive or pin down your letters.

• It's hard to tell from the Anthro picture, but what worked for me was a tan zig-zag stitch around the edge of each letter.

• Don't pull too much as you sew, like I did... it got a little wrinkly.  Luckily when I stretched it over the pillow form it flattened out!

• Attach to whatever you're using for the pillow back.  Stay tuned till next week when I do a tutorial for the other side of this pillow!!

The final product:

It is a lot of fun!  Of course I don't have such a beautiful room to put it in as the stylists for the Anthropologie catalog, but it's a nice way to give a room a new look.  And pillows are so fast and easy compared to dresses. ;)