Wednesday, November 30, 2011

You can make one too!!

First of all, thank you for all your wonderful comments and emails about my little pillow project. I guess I'm not the only one that fell in love with this colorful design! Many of you asked for more direction on how to make your own. Here's the scoop on how I made mine. It's very easy and some of you may find a better/easier way.First, you need to draw a pattern. This part may scare you a bit, but I assure you that anyone can do it! The best part of the drawing is that it's imperfectly perfect. You can't make a mistake!

Here's my drawing. I made a 20" pillow and wanted an 18" flower. I drew an 18" circle to give me my outer boundaries. Start in the center with a 1" circle. Echo the circle and draw 4 petals around it. Continue drawing petals around and around simply echoing the previous row and getting a bit larger as you go out from the center. When you reach the boundary, you'll need to make some smaller petals to fill in the gaps.
Here's a better picture of how to start. Just draw quickly and without too much fussing about how each petal looks as long as they're kind of echoing the previous one. You can see in the picture above that I then numbered each one, starting in the center and working out concentrically. I had 72.
Then grab a pile of scraps, big prints, small prints - anything goes - and some fusible web. Flip the pattern over to get the reverse and draw each petal onto the paper side (a light box helps). Fuse to a scrap of fabric, cut out. Place the background over the right side of the pattern and put your petals in place (a light box helps here too). I started in the center and worked around drawing and fusing about 12 at a time.
For the stitching, I layered my top with batting and a piece of backing. You can do any type of stitching around each petal - blanket stitch, straight stitch, zig zag. I wanted a kind of funky look - so I went with a small zig zag and very fine 50 wt. Aurifil thread in light yellow. The width was 1 and the length was 1.5 for the zig zag on my Bernina. The stitching tacked down the pieces and quilted it at the same time.
I added some cording in the seam for the pillow. It's the gray and white scallop stripe from Ruby.
The back is a 15" square with some 1 1/2" strips added log cabin style.
There you have it! Feel free to comment or email me if you have any questions.

Oh, and someone asked if it was a gift or for me. It's all mine! But my daughter loved it too, so I have a feeling we may be making another one over the Christmas visit!

20 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for this! I was certainly drooling over it,so now I can make one of my own!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love it! Thanks for the inspiration, tutorial, and encouragement : )

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just love it! This has been on my to do list for a while!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your pillow is soooo beautiful! Thanks for instructions, maybe someday. :)
    cjnid AT imaxmail DOT net

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you so much for sharing this!!! I really love the design and I have plenty of great small scraps to choose from...makes me very happy I don't throw away my smallish scraps :o) ... It will be after the first of the year before I start putting one together but I think I'll draw up my pattern right away and maybe cut some of the pieces in the evenings when I'm sitting in my comfy chair by the fireplace. Big Hugs...

    ReplyDelete
  6. OH!!! Wouldn't it be wonderful done up in Christmas fabric??? Or any seasonal colors for that matter. Yup...I think I will need more than one, LOL. Thanks again so very much. Hugs...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Your pillow definitely has a "wow!" factor. Thanks sharing how you created it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's wonderful - thanks for sharing your process!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I completely love it! When you say draw each petal onto the paper side, do you mean the paper side of the fusible web? Did you use Heat and Bond light? And the sewing zig zag? I've never done that through layers...was your batting really thin? Also, did you put a 20" form in there and then hand stitch a side closed that was the opening? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wonderful "how-to"/tutorial post. Thank you for sharing. This is on my ever expanding "to-do" list. Your pillow is spectacular!

    Have a super great sewing and stitching day.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Love it! Your daughter will definitely want to make one over her Christmas visit! :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you for the instructions! Your finished pillow is beautiful!!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. That is so beautiful. It would make an amazing quilt block too. Thank you for passing on the instructions.

    ReplyDelete
  14. It's beautiful! I'll have to add another Cindy project to my to do list!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi Cindy,
    The pillow is very beautiful and you did a great job. When I find the time I would like to make one. I know one need to be calm and easy to do this. Thanks for sharing.
    Jean

    ReplyDelete
  16. Good luck on keeping your cushion! It is lovely so no wonder your daughter wants it!

    ReplyDelete
  17. The pillow is just fantastic, love it!

    : )

    ReplyDelete
  18. I really love this cushion, I might have to attempt one or maybe two for my sister-in-laws birthdays in January. Thanks for the quick tutorial on how to make it. Really beautiful!!

    ReplyDelete
  19. This is so pretty, thank you for sharing it!

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.