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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

Beautiful bohemian pillows: Tutorial!

I've shared inspiration and ideas before from Anthropologie and other places for beautiful work-of-art pillows--so small, but they have such an effect on a room!

When I was in a productive, scrap-busting mood the other day I made a couple of Anthro-ey pillows from my pile of pretty-colored scraps.  I did a tutorial for the Orimono pillow a while ago, and am happy to share another tutorial for a pretty appliqué one!

Here's the inspiration:

And here's a tutorial to do this yourself!

  • Collect your pretty fabric scraps and leftover pieces...
  • Cut a square 1" bigger than your pillow in both width and length.  I like my pillow covers to fit snugly, so for my 18" pillow I cut a 19" square.
  • Cut out shapes that you want to appliqué on.  This rose print was a lovely home dec silk that my mom made a dress for me out of years ago.  I still have the scraps and was able to put them to good use!  I didn't have enough full roses to do more than one or two big stems, but I framed the pillow using the edge pieces and made a nice border out of it.  Arrange the shapes as you like.
  • Pin your shapes down.  Lots of pins!  You could use spray adhesive on the back of the fabric first in lieu of pins, but I didn't feel like going outside to spray...


  • Note: My pillow fabric, that woven stripe, was rather thin, so I reinforced it with a layer of quilting fabric I didn't want.  You can use muslin or whatever you like, but this extra layer will make your pillow last much longer.


  • To the machine!  Sew your shapes down.  I recommend a zigzag stitch.  Go all the way around your appliqués.


  • Great!  Now, you'll be ready to put on the zipper and attach to the back side of the pillow, if you have it done.  Again you'll need a square 1" bigger than your pillow form, and you can choose to make it plain or fancy.  I wanted to maximize my pillow stylings since I don't have room for lots of pillows but I did want to try out multiple Anthro pillow looks, so I did a fancy back.  I'll show you a tutorial for it soon!
  • Attach your zipper.  I'm using an invisible zipper.


  •  Open the zipper a few inches so you can reach your hand through, and sew the other three sides of the pillow.


  •  Clip your corners...


  • Press the three side seams flat, as much as you can.


  •  Turn right side out, and put on pillow!


As I said, tutorial for the back side (and for other super cool pillow styles) coming up soon!

7 comments

  1. Anonymous5/31/2011

    I love your Anthropology inspired cushion, great tutorial too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful cushion, congratulations, looks much like the one you used for inspiration.
    I am your admirer and I find it amazing that you're doing your own wedding dress, I'm anxious to see the result, be sure he'll be perfect.

    Hugs

    Eilane - Brazil

    (sorry for any mistake, I'm using a google translator)

    ReplyDelete
  3. fab! looks really lovely :)

    fashbrickroad.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  4. That turned out beautiful. great job.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks. very inspirational. I like the "backing" idea to strengthen the pillow. You make a zipper look easy.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I just saw this on the threadsence blog. I'm glad you said something to them in the comments. You'd think that a successful boutique would be more respectful of your intellectual property, but they probably have a random intern who writes blog features.

    ReplyDelete

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