Playful Pillows!
This month's Island Batik Challenge is to create a playful pillow! The fabrics featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik and are a part of the Season's Shade collection. I used my Heartbreaker block that I created in Lib Elliott's class at Sewtopia as my main center piece. Read about that block here.
I decided that my pillow needed a modern flair to it, so I decided to add some modern hexies!
The first thing was to applique the center piece onto the background. I used a straight stitch along the outside of the center piece. Since it was originally English Paper Pieced, there were no raw edges. Then I placed my modern hexies around the center piece.
What exactly are modern hexies you ask? This is a technique created by ModernHandcraft where you make a hexie with the edges folded under and you use fabric glue to permanently glue place them on the background fabric. I use Aleene's Fabric Fusion
I had to adjust my placement of the hexies as I was gluing them down to make sure the spacing was consistent.
Then I cut the background piece behind the appliqued center to reduce thickness.
This is a photo of the entire back, notice that you can see the glue marks. I wanted to make sure that these modern hexies stay permanently glued!
The next step is to make a quilt sandwich with the top, batting, and muslin. It's good practice to quilt over each of the modern hexies point to point to secure them to the background fabric. Even though permanent fabric glue is used, you won't want these to accidentally fall off though wear and tear of the pillow cover.
I decided to make a zipper closure for the back of my pillow. This is like making a zipper pouch but only having the exterior fabric sewn on the zipper with no interior fabric.
Placing the quilted front and the zipper back right sides together, I trimmed everything to 20" square. I then used this handy dandy Pillow Corner Template to trim all of my corners.
The Pillow Corner Template helps keep the filled pillow square by trimming off the excess corner fabric.
Once all four corners were trimmed, I sewed all the way around to make the cover. Remember to open up the zipper prior to sewing, so the pillow cover can be turned after sewing. I forgot and had a difficult time getting the zipper open to flip my cover!
I used a 20" pillow form from Joann's to insert into my pillow. I picked a really poofy pillow, and it didn't fill out the entire cushion. I have been told that IKEA sells less expensive pillows than the pillow forms. Next time, I think I may have to check out IKEA to see what I can use inside my handmade pillow covers!
Even though my pillow form was not the best, you can still see how the corners of the pillow would be more square since I used the Pillow Corner Template.
Have you made pillow covers before? Where do you get your pillows?
If you're interested in what the other Island Batik Ambassadors are making, you can check out their blogs. There are 45 ambassadors this year! Be sure to follow Island Batik on Facebook and Instagram to see the projects we all make too!
Amy at Sew Incredibly Crazy
Anita at Quilt in a not-Shell
Anna at Ark Angel Creations
Anne at Sweetgrass Designs
Barbara at Bejeweled Quilts
Bea at BeaQuilter
Carole at Carole Lyles Shaw
Connie at Freemotion by the River
Connie at Kauffman Designs
Dione at Clever Chameleon
Geraldine at Living Water Quilter
Jackie at If These Threads Could Talk
Janet at Whispers of Yore
Jeanette at Inchworm Fabrics
Jen at Patterns by Jen
Jennifer at Curlicue Creations
Jennifer at Dizzy Quilter
Jennifer at Inquiring Quilter
Jessica at Desert Bloom Quilting
Joan at Moosestash Quilting
Joyce at heARTs Creations
Karen at Sew Karen-ly Created
Kathleen at Kathleen McMusing
Laura at Slice of Pi Quilts
Leanne at Devoted Quilter
Mania at Mania for Quilts
Maryellen at Mary Mack Made Mine
Michelle at Creative Blonde
Myra at Busy Hands Quilts
Nancy at Masterpiece Quilting
Pamela at PamelaQuilts
Sally at Sally Manke
Sandra at MMM Quilts
Sarah at Sarah Goer Quilts
Sharon at Yellow Cat Quilt Designs
Sherry at Powered by Quilting <--- me!
Stephanie at Steph Jacobson
Suzy at Adventurous Applique and Quilting
Teri at Lizard Creek Quilts
Tina at Quilting Affection Designs
Toby at Gateway Quilts & Stuff
Turid at Den Syende Himmel
Vicki at Vicki's Crafts & Quilting
Join me again on Friday for Friday Foto Fun and on Sunday for the #365DayOfArtPBQChallenge! Link up and share your progress on your own projects!
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Oh wow, I love love love this. The colours are beautiful and I love the pattern 😊
I’ve never heard of glueing down hexies before, it’s a great idea! Your pillow looks lovely! I make a lot of pillows and sometimes just make my own pillow form from thin sheeting cotton. I find you can get a firmer stuffed pillow that way! If I do buy the pillow forms the fabric shop I go to stocks them. I have tried buying cheap pillows but found the forms go very flat, very fast!
That Aileen’s Fabric Fusion looks really handy! Love your pillow!!!
Hi, Sherry! It was SO fun to meet you on Friday! Did you visit the rest of the shops? I bought 20” feather pillow inserts at IKEA and they are very inexpensive—maybe $4. I haven’t used them yet, but they seem very nice—better than anything else I’ve used. I needed a 16×20” form, but the feathers settle enough that it’ll work. (I love feather pillows, so I’m biased.) The pillow forms are back in home decor with the readymade pillows and they’re shrink wrapped into small packages.
SR Harris also has pillow forms cheaper than JoAnnes. Not quite as cheap as IKEA though. I haven’t used them, so I can’t speak for how well they hold up. Cute pillow finish! I’ve forgotten to open zippers too; it sure makes turning things creative, right!?
I love the bright and dark colors against the neutral batik and how you combined techniques by Libs and Nicole for your pillow. It turned out great! I tend to stuff the corners with excess batting to help them fill out if my pillow form is less than ideal. 😉
Hi Sherry,
Lovely pillow!! And fabulous instructions – I’m going to PIN this. I do make pillows (or shams). I am embarrassed to say that I just made two for my bed to match Postcard AND I FORGOT to quilt them. What?! Yup – I pieced them all together, carefully cut the backing, inserted a zipper, found pillows to put inside, but them on my bed to take a picture and THEN noticed that I forgot to quilt them. Oh well. I’m not undoing it all now. But geeeeeeeez. Maybe next time I should follow your instructions.
~smile~ Roseanne
Fabulous! I’ve been wanting to try the Modern Hexies technique, and seeing you use it might finally push me to give it a shot!
Yes, made a cross stitch pillow from a kit.
I love what you did with this! I have made many a pillow and some work out better than others. For my most recent, I made my own and I might be happier with that. The quilt store I worked in sold Fairfield so I have used that alot and have been happy with the way it held up.