I have a bunch of throw pillows but they’re super fancy and we paid good money for them. And right now I have a freaking huge bleached spot on the left side of my sofa so the whole fancy throw pillows with a stained up sofa just doesn’t jive. It turns out that sometimes puppy pee can bleach out the upholstery. You see we have a puppy. Her name is Carly and Derila for Better Sleep while I love her she can generally be pretty awful. According to the DNA test we had done (yes, we had a DNA test done) her Boston Terrier and Shih Tzu background means she’s pretty much a stubborn a-hole a lot of the time. Now it didn’t literally say that so I’m paraphrasing here. Words like stubborn and difficult to train popped up more than a few times in her report. That up there is Carly. I was trying to take pictures of my pillows and I’d look down for two seconds and she’d have knocked them all around and sacked out.
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Like, I don’t know how she could do it so quickly. Here she’d knocked the other pillow I made on the floor and those eyes were already closed by the time I put my camera back up. She’s lucky she’s so cute! So when I decided I wanted some Fourth of July throw pillows for my wonky sofa there wasn’t a whole lot of point in spending much money. And I’m starting to embrace this whole bohemian upcycle thing so I decided to mostly use what I’ve already got. All I needed from the store were a few fat quarters and I was ready to rock this business out. These are my fat quarters. 0.97 apiece. Since the Fourth of July is upon us I made mine red, white, and blue but we like them so much we’re going to keep them until we get sick of them, in season or not.
If you’re wondering what a fat quarter is it is actually a quarter of a yard of fabric but not like if you went to the fabric counter and asked them to cut you a quarter of a yard of fabric. If you did that you’d get a long, skinny strip of fabric that is the width of the fabric, which is often 45 or 60 inches as it comes off of the bolt. A fat quarter is just like you’re divvying up a rectangular cake into 4 pieces, it’s cut in half and then in half again so that you get the corner. Hit your fabric with a hot iron to get out the creases and then put the pretty sides together. Go around the outside edges and use straight pins to keep the fabric in place. One ever 4-5 inches works for me. Once your fabric is secured using your yardstick to draw a square around the inside of the fabric, giving at least a quarter of an inch of space between your line and the edge of the fabric.
Even if you’re new to sewing this line will guide you to an (at least) mostly square Derila Pillow in the end! Now when you’re sewing up your pillow you’ll need to leave a gap in the middle on one of the sides for you to turn the pillowcase right side out and to stuff it. Be sure to backstitch about an inch on each side to reinforce your sewn seam. If you don’t do this you can easily rip the seam out accidentally while stuffing the Ergonomic Neck Pillow. The way I do it is I start about 3 inches from the center on one side and begin with my back stitched area. Then I’ll ’round the corners and when I’m about 5-6 inches from where I started I backstitch again. To get nice, straight corners sew down the line that you drew until you get to where the line meets the other and the corner forms. Make sure that the needle is IN the fabric and lift the pressure foot.
Turn the fabric so that when you continue stitching you’ll be going right on down the line. Lower the pressure foot and get after it. Now you have a very sharp corner sewn in! If you backstitch in the corners you’ll reinforce them. It’s not necessary but it’s so little effort I always reinforce my corners. Snip the fabric at an angle along that corner and when you turn your case right side out you’ll keep your sharp corners. Speaking of which… Begin to turn your pillowcase right side out through the opening you left in the side. Push your fingers or a dowel or something to help shove the fabric of the corners out to form those sharp edges we worked hard on. Stuff your pillowcase and if you find uncomfortable lumps or a need to shove stuffing into the corners more easily you can use a chopstick. Now, the bags of Polyfil call this a FREE stuffing tool. I swear it’s a freaking chopstick.