Button Pillow Tutorial

(FYI: Coral fabric from JoAnn, buttons from Hancock, long pillow from Home Goods)

Button pillows are everywhere these days. Everywhere except at home :( So we decided to make our own and save us the $17 they cost. Ouch! Here is a tutorial for how to make a button pillow.

Materials Needed for one Button Pillow measuring 20" x 20":

• 3/4 yd. fabric (at least 44" wide)
• 1 button
• Thread to match the pillow
• Thread to match the button (not pictured)
• Down Pillow form 20" x 20"

1. From your fabric cut one square measuring 21". This will be your back, so set it aside for now.

 

2. Cut another piece measuring 21" x 22". This will become the front of your pillow.

3. From your piece measuring 21" x 22" measure and cut 7.5" down the longer side. This creates two pieces, we will call them piece "A" and "B".

 

4. From the remaining original fabric cut a 1.5" strip. The length doesn't really matter, but make it at least six inches long.

 

5. Iron your 1.5" strip in half lengthwise creating a crease. Open up the strip so it still measures 1.5" but now has a crease in the center.
 

6. Iron both sides into the center crease.

 7. Fold and iron in half. You should now have a nicely finished 1/4" cord.

8. Sew your cord as close as you can along the unfinished edge. 

9. Your cord should be completely finished now.

 10. Cut your cord into 2- 1.5" strips.

11. Find the middle of Piece B. Place your cord strips on either side of the middle mark. Maybe about an 1/8" apart.

 12. Pin Piece A to Piece B, Right sides together. Make sure to pin your cords down to keep them in place.

13. Using a 1/2" seam allowance, reattach Piece A to Piece B.

 14. Iron up your seam.

15. Top stitch using a scant 1/2'' seam allowance.

16. Tack down your cords, sewing along the bottom edge.

17. Sew your button on, hiding your cords and creating a foe loophole.

18. Now find your backing piece (measuring 21" square). Pin the front of the pillow to the back piece, right sides together. Sew 1/2" around 3 sides of the pillow. The side you don't sew should be the bottom of your pillow!

 19. Turn your pillow right sides out and stuff in your pillow form. Pin the bottom.

20. Sew as close to the edge as you dare!

Ta da! You are finished. Shoot us an email with any questions, trust us this tutorial sounds harder than it really is! Enjoy!

Change of Plans

Today we spent the afternoon basting this quilt. It’s been hiding in the closet for months, and a few hours ago we felt like tackling the machine quilting. Not anymore. After we basted it and started quilting, we had the seam reaper within 2 minutes of starting. 2 minutes. People!

(Found here)

What's that about keeping calm? If only ;)

So, after basting the whole quilt (3 times mind you!) we made an easy decision and un-basted it. And no, that wasn't a waste of time. Or so we keep telling ourselves :)

But now, thankfully, we don't have to worry about this problematic quilt. We are planning to store it away so it can get lost in all the mess. Our evil plan will work perfectly because every time our quilt closets open: Timber! Everything comes crashing down. Now we will be sure to forget about this quilt :) So, please excuse us while we shove this quilt back into the black hole we call a closet...

12 Machine Quilting Tutorials

We wanted to put together machine quilting tutorials for us quilters who don't use long-arm machines. We gathered together some cute ideas from Pinterest and the links are provided below. Enjoy!

1. Overlapping Circles
 


2. Orange Peel



3. Dogwood



4. Baptist Fans



5.  Clamshell Loop



6. Pebbles



7. Flowers



8. Loopy Flowers



9. Straight Lines



10. Two-Pass Circle

 

11. Spiral Chain

(Photo found here)

12. Big Diamond, Little Diamond

Fresh

The one complaint we have about big quilts is that they are a pain in the neck to take pictures of. We took pictures not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. Um, yeah. We win the patience award of the year :)

We love this picture above because it looks like we live in the woods. We don't :) In fact we had a hard time finding a spot where there was no dead grass; it's obviously hot here. Or something like that...

The summery fabrics are Heather Mulder Peterson's Summerhouse collection. Desperate times calls for desperate measures. Meaning we bought every last charm pack of this line at our local quilt shop. Sorry if you're looking for this line :)

The machine quilting was a new experience. We'll leave it at that ;)

 
For snuggling privileges click here (to purchase). Everyone else, click here :)

This pattern is from Camille Roskelley's new book Simply Retrro.

Love how Camille's patterns are traditional but not.
 

Here is the picture you've been waiting for. A full shot of the 67" square quilt.

Happy Tuesday!

Wallflowers Design Contest

 

If you haven't heard already, there is a quilt design contest going on right now for Cluck Cluck Sew's new fabric line: Wallflowers. Patterns are created via Threadbias (which is easy to use!) and a winner will be selected soon. 

Here is our design, Flourish:

Come and check us out...and join Threadbias (for free!) so you can vote for us! We're crossing our fingers that we'll win because, let's face it, who wouldn't want to win the Wallflowers fabric collection and Allsion's Growing Up Modern Book? Signed, none the less!

We will make this Flourish design into a pattern you can purchase once we get around to it. No promises on how soon ;)

Happy Quilting!
Anna and Sarah