Christmas Pillow

When I shared our decorations for Christmas, I showed a picture of a pillow slipcover that I made. I promised a post to show how I did it, so here goes.
I started with a pillow in perfect condition and a slipcover for it that needed to go! The original princess fabric had been white at one time.

I cut the seam on the princess fabric and pulled out the perfectly white pillow.

Next I went about assembling my ideas. I found my inspiration off pinterest here and here. Love the tree idea in the second link and the buttons to close the slipcover in the first link.
I did alot of measuring, but really didn’t use the measurements too much. I really just eyed it and worked as I went.

First I laid out my design on a scrap paper. Honestly I’m not 100% sure I can decode it anymore… T for Tall, M for Middle, S for small, CC=candycane fabric, G Polka= green polka. I actually think I changed the order of the layout too because I accidently cut a tree out of the wrong material and I didn’t want to waste it.

Next I free-handed each tree and stump. I first drew it on notebook paper, then transferred it to heat and bond lite, cut it out of H&B and then ironed the H&B to the wrong side of the fabric. Last the fabric gets cut out.

After I cut out the design on the fabric (with the heat and bond already attached), I figured out the placement on the pillow. I found the center of the main fabric and started ironing my design down. (this picture is actually after I did the stitching, but pretend the stitches aren’t there). When I ironed I started from the top of the tree down so at the last second I could stick the trunk in there. I wanted to trunks to be under the bottom stitch, not just touching the tree.

Next I stitched all around the edges. This was the most tedious part. You have to keep equal spaces on each side, and turn the corners at pretty much the same place. Also the trunks were relatively small, so it was only 4-5 stitches per side.

I also changed up the thread to make it more interesting… green stitching on the red fabric and red stitching on the green fabric.

I did make a mistake on this and when I do another slipcover I will change the order I do this: On this one I stitched the top and bottom seams of the pillow first, leaving the ends to do last. Next time I’ll sew the ends first, then do the top and bottom. I ended up with some awkward seams on the ends. Although I’ve fixed it to where it won’t unravel, it looks weird from the side IMO. The buttons were just a basic button hole. My machine practically does it for me so not much to talk about there. I did make sure that when I sewed the button on, that I made it neat since you can see the stitches on the back of the pillow. My machine has a setting to sew the button on for you, but I’m not brave enough to try it yet- something about a needed moving really fast and a really hard button and sharp needle…
I’m hoping to make a slipcover for each season… I already have my fall idea, but I need to come up with a winter, spring, and summer. And yes, I categorize “Christmas” as a season ;)

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