Making Of - Living Room Throw Pillow

Last week I decided to make this throw pillow for my living room chair.

I am very happy with the way that it turned & it didn't cost me a thing!

This pillow in all reality would have cost anywhere from $50-$100 with how expensive this stuff is individually, but I have my ways :)

Here is the stuff that I started with: I had a pillow insert that I had purchased years ago for another project and never used. This pillow is a down filled pillow and is a great pillow. The gold fabric was a sample fabric from my old work at Bassett that I had in my fabric stash and would have been probably $20-$30 a yard if purchased. The peachy, gold fabric was a fabric memo that I purchased back when I was in design school. I had a project that I wanted some nice fabrics for, I went to a local designer fabric place and purchased this memo (a fabric sample about 3'x3') for $10. I hate to admit this but that was probably 7 years ago. This fabric is probably anywhere between $50-$100+ a yard!!!! It is such high end silk and is a Beacon Hill brand which is one of the most expensive! Anyway, I got it for the $10 and just had to use a small corner of it for my project so I had a large section of it left over. The red trim was left over from some pillows that I sewed for my family cabin and I believe that it was around $20 a yard.

Here is how I made the pillow:

I took some printer paper and created my own pattern to cut from.

I cut the 2 sides in the peach fabric and then I sewed them to the gold fabric.

I wanted a pleated center so I needed to make the gold fabric larger than what the measurement was.

*I found the center of the gold fabric on the back side and marked it with a pin.

*I measured 2" from each side and ironed it over with wrong sides facing each other.

*Then I measured 3/4" from the ironed edge and ironed it with right sides facing each other.

*From that last ironed edge, I measured 1 1/4" and ironed wrong sides facing together.

You can see a pattern here. Basically you are making an accordion fold but making them overlap a bit so that you can see each individual fold.

Here is what it looks like all finished on both sides pinned down.

After the front was all pleated and pinned, I pinned the front to the back which was 2 pieces overlapping each other to create a pocket.

In each corner, I cut a tassel from the red trim I had and pinned it in each corner.

Now I hope I am not the only one who does this!.... but I pinned the wrong side of the fabric to the back and when I turned it right side out, the wrong side was facing forward!.... So I had to unstitch the whole thing a resew it!

Here is the back side. You can see that I didn't make my flap big enough but I honestly don't care when it is the back!

And here is the close up of the tassel and the pleating.

I love that I was able to create this with stuff that I already had and it didn't cost me a dime (recently). When I get other things done in my living room, I will show a picture of it on the chair with the full affect of everything else. (whenever that happens). Until then, I will enjoy my one pillow in that room :)