Thursday, April 5, 2012

Pillows, Pillows, Pillows Everywhere

You saw a picture of these fabulous pillows that it only took me three years to make yesterday.

I bought the green striped material before leaving the U.S. to come to Niger because I have a thing for that color green and it was on sale.

Then just before leaving I stopped in at the fabric store in Canada and  I bought the green and blue flowered material which is peeking out from the box pleated pillow.

So I have had them for a long time but I haven't been inspired to create anything with them for one reason or another until this spring break.

Inspiration hit when I discovered I had a third coordinating material but we'll get to that in a minute.

The two green pillows are a very simple design with a hidden zipper.  I used this tutorial to help me with the zipper.  It's simple and easy to follow.
We have a store here in Niamey that sells second hand clothes that come from thrift stores in the U.S.  I picked this shirt up awhile ago thinking it would be fun to make rosettes out of it.  But while looking through my material I realized that it coordinated perfectly with my other fabrics and that I could easily turn it into a pillow with a button closure.  So I went for it.  It didn't happen as easily as I imagined because the darts in the shirt made it difficult to get it straight but I finally got it close enough to be satisfied.  If felt like it needed something else so I added the rosettes which I love!


After surfing the web for pillow tutorials trying to find something I liked for my third and final fabric, I finally decided on this box pleat pillow tutorial.  If you are looking for a pillow tutorial I would highly recommend starting at this site because this tutorial is easy to follow and has a good balance of visuals with written instructions.  Not to mention that the site had scads of other pillow tutorials.  Anyway, I visited a local fabric store and picked up the chocolate brown linen and I have to say that I think this is my favorite one of the bunch.  So cute!  Here's a close up of the box pleat on the side.


So there you go...what I lack in cute pictures on the wall, I've made up for in cute pillows on the couches. 

Plus, if teaching ever falls through for me I might have a future as a pillow maker - as long as someone out there has a good tutorial for me.

2 comments:

  1. I could spend hours on your blog!! I LOVED the invisible pillow cover link! Who would have known it could be that easy!! If you ever come over to our house and see our pillow covers...you will laugh at the BAD job I did on them!!!

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  2. I'll try not to look! :) I gave Beka a hard time about one that she made that had a hole in it and then we just laughed over it. There really is a wealth of info on the net and I especially love all the tutorials with pictures. I think I must be a visual learner.

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