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 (affiliate link).

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!

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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