Pillow Patrol

Did you guys do any Black Friday shopping? I got so many e-mails about sales. It was ridiculous. It took soooo much effort not to blow my entire paycheck on fabric and cosplay supplies. I only indulged in a few things: a cute bowler hat, a blonde wig from Epic Cosplay (my first from them), and a pair of black sneakers. Any guesses what they’re for?

In an effort to keep to my stashbusting pledge, I decided to make a few envelope pillows and other DIY projects out of my leftover novelty print fabrics. I only anticipated making 3-4 pillows, but I grossly underestimated how much spare fabric I had. I wound up making 7 pillows total and a botched 8th. I also cut pieces for two bow clutches, my upcoming Korra cosplay, and my upcoming Ms. Marvel cosplay, but I’ll get to those in a later post.

There are a ton of great pillow tutorials on the interwebz, but here’s the one I used. It’s very simple and straightforward with lots of pictures. Yes, you will want to cut your fabric the same size as your pillow to make it look fuller, but don’t cut smaller or this happens.

As a reference, the pillow covers I made for myself were cut to 13″ by 13″ measurements, but my pillow forms are 14″x14″. Oops. Just an excuse to buy more pillow forms 😉

All in all, it took me 2 hours to sew all 8 pillows. Cutting took a while because I had to play fabric cutting Tetris from scraps.

I mentioned that I botched one of the pillows. I made a rookie mistake and sewed the right sides of the back to the wrong side of the front. I had no interest in seam ripping, so I’m tossing it back into the scrap bin to be reborn as a clutch in the future.

Pillows are such a great way to practice and learn new techniques. You can keep them as simple as you like, or make them super complicated and frilly. I stuck with basic envelopes for time’s sake, but it wouldn’t have taken too much effort to add some piping, make and add some ruffles, toss on a cool front piece (I may make a few nerdy logos out of felt for future projects), or add a zipper. It’s also a great time to practice new hemming techniques like a blind hem or a narrow hem, because if you botch it, no one is really going to see.

Just for the record, these aren’t all for me. I’m keeping one of the Marvel, Star Wars, and Wonder Woman pillows, but the rest are going to family members (namely, cousins in the 8-12 age range) for Christmas. Here’s hoping they like ’em!