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Have you seen all the great pillows out there with dimension to them? Do you cringe a little bit when you look at the price tag on them? I know I do! I had some scrap pink fleece left over from sewing a robe for Pip awhile back and I decided to whip it up into my own version for practically nothing. I took some photos so I could share with you how to sew a ruffle flower pillow yourself. It’s a pretty easy project and I think the result is fluffy soft and as good as anything I could have bought in the store.
Supplies you need for your DIY ruffled flower pillow:
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- 12×16 pillow form
- fleece fabric
- 1—13×17 piece for front
- 2—13×10.5 pieces for the back
- strips of fabric 2” wide for ruffle flower
- Stitch n Tear stablilizer (what I used) You could probably use a light weight iron on stabilizer if you wanted instead.
- thread to match
- pins (longer pins like these in the link work better with the thicker fleece and are what I used, but you can make regular pins work I’m sure)
How to sew a ruffle flower pillow with an envelope closure:
1. Cut out your scalloped strips of fabric for the ruffle flower. You can cut two at once if you use the positive and negative of your cut. I just cut a straight line to the right of the wavy cut for a second piece of ruffle.
2. With the longest straight stitch setting on your machine, stitch in a little over a 1/4 inch from the straight edge of your ruffle strips. Then take one of the strings on the end and pull it to form the ruffle, distributing the ruffle down the stitching as you pull gently. I go to the middle and then pull from the other side to the middle.
3. Lay your square of stabilizer in the middle, on the back side of your 13×17 piece. Before you stitch anything down, do a test run of your ruffles to play around with what you want the end result to be. I decided to make my outside ruffles on the bottom looser (so I didn’t pull the string as much for those) and gradually get more ruffley as I got closer to the middle.
4. Once you are happy, take off all but the first piece. Lay it out, making sure it is centered how you want and pin it in place–not too close to the edges you are going to stitch down (you will have 5/8” seam allowances on all edges). My edges didn’t meet for this piece (looked like the above photo) so don’t worry if your strips aren’t long enough to make it entirely around the outside!
5. Begin stitching, removing pins as you go.
6. Starting in any blank areas you had in the last row, start filling in the center. I hate pinning and avoid it whenever possible, but I felt I needed the pins for this project.
7. Here’s what I had 3 rows in.
8. For this last part, I pinned down until I started lapping the pinned area. I left it loose until the very last part, which I hand sewed down.
9. Hand sew this last bit down, making sure you securely knot it in the beginning and the end of the stitching.
And voila!
Rip out the stabilizer on the back if you went with Stitch n Tear. Do it gently so you don’t rip out stitches.
10. Now you are going to add the back pieces on. Turn under a 1/2” on the 13” side of your 13×10.5 pieces. Repeat with other piece.
11. With right sides together, lay your pieces like so:
12. Pin
13. Stitch in with a 5/8” seam allowance and turn right side out.
Pip loves hers!
Do you have scrap fabric that would work for this? If you make one I’d love to see the results! Link it up in the comments or send me a photo of the finished pillow at pinktoesandpowertools (at) gmail (dot) com
If you liked this post, you may also enjoy:
How to make a geometric pillow cover with an envelope closure
Sew a tank top into a tote bag
How to sew a camera bag insert for a purse
