Yella Pella

By that I mean yellow pillow. As in this little bit of awesomeness…

I dreamed up this idea for a pillow yesterday morning and was totally inspired to create it as soon as possible. This yellow fabric has been sitting in my stash for over a year. Clearly it was just waiting for the opportunity to become a pretty little pillow for my bed.

It was really easy and fun to make. I thought about making it in a circle shape, but I didn’t have a round pillow form or any loose batting. I decided to make it 14″ square to work with a pillow form I already had. I cut two 13.5″ square pieces of fabric (I like to make my pillow covers a little tight so they look nice and full), then just cut looooong strips from the same fabric. This was the most time consuming part. I just cut and cut and cut. I could make one really long strip out of a relatively short piece of fabric by cutting almost all the way to the end, then turning around and starting a new cut going the other direction, like you see here:

Make sense? I eyeballed my strips to be about 1″ wide, but they certainly weren’t uniform or anywhere near perfect. The beauty of this pillow is that sloppiness just adds interest to the final product. Every now and then I would stop and kind of lay out the strips on the square of fabric to measure my progress. By the time I was sure I had enough, I had three long strips.

I joined the strips together using my sewing machine.The edges didn’t match together perfectly, so I just sort of folded the bigger one a bit.

My original plan had been to sew the strips to the pillow, but as I sat there staring back and forth from the fabric to my sewing machine, I started thinking about how much of a pain that might end up being. Plus the sewing machine is so loud that I can’t talk to anybody or even listen to music or the TV while I sew. I decided to glue the strips to the fabric while I watched TV with Nicholas and his brother. A much more pleasant way to spend my Sunday afternoon than slaving over a sewing machine.

It’s worth explaining that I’d decided at this point that I won’t ever be washing this pillow. If I wanted it to be washable I would need to A) do something to prevent the strips from fraying (either by hemming or by treating them with liquid fray-check), and B) use fabric glue. I much prefer to use regular ol’ craft glue over fabric glue (which I find tiresome to squeeze). Craft glue doesn’t fare well in the washing machine but is mega-sturdy for all other purposes, so craft glue it was for this little pillow. I ran a line of glue down the edge of my strip, then pressed it onto one of my 13.5″ squares in a circular fashion.

I just kept wrapping and wrapping around, gluing and pressing as I went. Whenever I got to a weird part (like where I’d reached the edge of the fabric in my strip-cutting) I just folded it about the right width and kept going.

At some point I decided the strips were lying too flat and started ruffling them a bit as I glued.

Glue and press, glue and press…

Then I got the genius idea to run a line of glue where I wanted my strip to go, instead of on the strip itself. This was much more efficient.

Almost done…

When I got to the end I just squeezed a bunch of glue in the middle and twisted what was left of my strip up into itself.

Voila!

I gave the glue a while to dry (maybe an hour or so), then followed the same steps as I did for my blue chevron pillow to get it ready for action. I laid the other square of fabric face down on top of it, sewed around three and a half sides, trimmed my corners, turned it inside out, stuffed my insert in, and stitched up the opening by hand.

Bam.

I love love love the way it looks on my bed. I’m also loving how much more of my bedroom I’m able to photograph with my new camera! I’m working on taking updated pictures of the whole house so I can update my house tour page.

Speaking of updates, check out the new header that I made! (if you read my posts via email or a reader, click on over to the homepage to see it) I am far from being a graphic designer, but I wanted something new to let folks know what this little corner of the internet is all about. I write mostly about my home, but every now and then my crafty escapades take me outside the realm of home decor (as in my ruffled fabric necklace), and I like to throw in some posts now and then about general “life” stuff, as well, like the one about staying calm even when things aren’t going your way. Because a pretty house and a talent for crafts does not a great life make. You gotta have the emotional slash relationships slash health slash balance stuff there too. So the new header gives me license to write about that sort of stuff without feeling like I’m straying too far from my core mission. Holla.

11 Responses to Yella Pella

  1. It looks great! I have been wanting to make a pillow like this but with a dog, cat, and a toddler, I like my pillow covers to be washable. It is so adorable though!

  2. britt@knewlywifed

    Love the pillow, love the header, and love the bench(?) at the foot of your bed!!! What kind of lens does your new camera have?

  3. Love your new header and the pillow is gorgeous too!

  4. The pillow is adorbs! That yellow really pops, I love it :)

  5. love that pop of yellow and that hope chest! so cute!

  6. Pingback: Ch-ch-ch-changes | Living Well on the Cheap

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