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.