Simplicity Pillow: Bloom Cherry Blossoms

Pillows are great and you can never have enough of them.  Swap them out according to season, room decor or even to match your mood.  There are many reasons why you can never have enough of them around.  Personally, I don't think I have enough pillows - actually barely any.  I usually admire the ones in the stores or in peoples' homes but I realized that my own home is lacking pillows.


That's why I'm dedicating my next few smaller projects to PILLOWS :).  I have a few ideas in mind - in this post I will share my first:  Simplicity Pillow.  Here's my first one (I made quite a few of these since I love that fabric):




As the name implies, it is simple.  Well I should say Simple and FABULOUS.  Because besides from being a simple pillow to make, you have to first find yourself a FABULOUS piece of fabric you absolutely adore.  Can't be too hard these days since there are so many great ones out there.  Here's my quick tutorial on how to create the Simplicity Pillow.

Materials:

• beautiful cotton print fabric - cut 16.5" x 17": Bloom Cherry blossoms by Studio E
• Solid coordinating fabric - cut 16.5" x 17": Amy Butler Solid Periwinkle
• Batting - cut 16.5" x 17": Natural Cotton
• Thread: One to match cotton print, one to match darker solid fabric

1. Composing the pillow top quilt: Layer the  cotton print, batting and solid together in that order.  Make sure the cotton print is right side up.

2. Going in one direction, mark quilt lines about 4 inches apart - leaving the extra fabric (since the length is either 6.5" or 7") on the outer strip.  For small projects I just 1/4" quilting tape.

3. Quilt on either side of the marked lines - about 1/4" apart.  If you are using the tape, make sure you don't quilt on the tape, it's a pain to remove.
4. Going the other direction, mark quilt top 4" apart - 90 degrees from the previously quilted lines and quilt the same in the same fashion.

5. Attaching a zipper:  For this pillow top I used an 'invisible' zipper.  Tutorial for attaching zippers are found HERE.  Attach the zipper along the shorter length of the pillow top and bottom.

6. After zipper is attachment to one side of the pillow, face right sides of the fabrics together and double sew 1/4" along the 3 other sides.
7. Carefully turn out all four corners and then the whole pillow right side out.

Enjoy :).  I'm going to make this pillow pattern with a few more fabrics that I think will go very nice with this simple design. 



I am sharing this pillow at these lovely linking parties. 



-Q