Created by: Maker, Meredith Daniel
Project Description – Holidays are the perfect time to have some fun with decor. You can get away with interesting shapes, textures, and styles when decorating seasonally, and I think for me, that this brings out a creativity that is willing to operate a little outside the box. Rather than reaching for a traditional quilting cotton, I picked up a textured woven tablecloth from home shop, and I ‘upcycled’ it into the main body of my pillow. You can really have fun with this one, and I hope more than anything that it will inspire you to have some fun with your sewing projects.
Supplies –
A tablecloth, sheet, or chosen fabric for main pillow
1/4 yard quilting cotton or lawn for ruffle
1lb fiberfill for light stuffing
Pins and/or clips
Rotary cutter
Ruler
Coordinating thread
Instructions –
First, make a template. I used the cardboard insert from the tablecloth I purchased to make a template that is about 18” tall x 9” wide. You can totally wing it. There is no template, only your imagination!
Cut out two heart shapes from your cloth using the template you made. One will be for the pillow front and the other will be for the back.
Next, cut fabric for the ruffle. I used a Liberty print for this, and to figure out how much was needed, I measured around the heart which was about 62” and I doubled the length so I would have a good gather. I wanted my ruffle to be about 1.5” when finished, so accounting for the fold and the seam allowance, I cut 4” strips to measure about 124” when sewn together. Sew strips together to get the appropriate length. Join either end so you have one large circle of fabric, and press seams open. Press the whole circle strip in half (wrong sides together) so its 2” wide when folded and pressed.
Lay the circular strip flat so you can place a pin at the furthest spot on either end. This is such a weird thing to try to put into words- basically you should have two pins that are (in my case) 62” apart. The purpose of this is so that we can gather each half of the heart independently, which is easier than doing it all in one pass. (See above photo)
Set your machine to sew a long stitch length (about 3.5), and putting the needle down then up, catch the bobbin thread and pull it out about 5” so you’ll have thread tails to pull once its time to gather. We are going to be doing two passes of these long stitches, but we will start and stop at the needles- don’t remove them. When you start and stop, DO NOT use the scissor function of the machine. You will raise the presser foot, cut a long thread tail, and then restart with a long thread tail.
For the first pass, stitch 1/4” away from the raw edge of the strip beginning at one needle. When you reach the second, stop, raise the needle bar and foot and pull the fabric away so the thread tail is at least 5” long. Cut the thread and making sure you are starting again with at least 5” of thread tail, begin sewing just on the other side of the needle. Repeat sewing until you reach the beginning point and again cut a long thread tail. This is the first pass.
For the second pass, repeat steps for the first pass of gathering stitches, but sew 1/2” away from the raw edge.
Now we will attach the ruffle to the main pillow piece. Clip 1/4” into ruffle piece where one of the needles is at. That will be pinned to the bottom of the heart. Place the other pin at the top center of the heart, and secure.
Work one side of the heart at a time, and gently pull the two threads at the same time on either to the top or bottom of the heart, carefully shifting gathers with your other hand as you go. Eventually, your gathered piece will be the same size as the half you are working on- when this happens, wrap the thread ends around the needle a couple times to keep them secure and adjust gathers evenly. I prefer to use pins to secure gathers.
Repeat with the other half of the heart.
Once you are happy with your gathers, you can sew them down using a normal stitch length and a scant 3/8” seam allowance.
Remove the longer gathering stitches by pulling them out so they are not visible. Do not remove the stitches you used to secure it to the pillow piece.
At this point, use a serger or a zigzag stitch to finish the pillow edge (on the front and back pieces), especially if your fabric frays. My tablecloth is woven from thick threads, but they were prone to unravel, so I certainly needed to finish the edges.
Next, pin or clip your back pillow piece right side down onto the front piece. Your gathers should not be visible. You are going to stitch all the way around the pillow using a 3/8” seam allowance and leaving a 6” (or whatever length is needed to fit your hand) opening for stuffing.
Stuff your pillow, and use a hand stitching needle to close the opening using a blind stitch.
