New Couch Pillows

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I decided recently that the kid’s couch needed a few more cushions, especially to pull the colors of the rug into the room,
I was wanting something that was patchy looking so I could tie in all of the colors, but I didn’t want to do it in a quilt style, since that really is a specific look, and the rest of the room isn’t in a quilt/American country style. So I turned to the internet, to look for something I could find that was going to let me use many different fabrics, but not be country, what I found was this pillow from Anthropologie…
I decided that it was perfect to inspire the look I wanted, although I wasn’t going to attempt an EXACT reproduction, the methods would be pretty similar, here is my pillow…..
I always feel like I am apologizing for my pictures, but I have to remember that at least taking them is a step for me 🙂 usually I just muscle through projects and forget to take any! These are all cell phone pictures taken after midnight in our house because Paul has been staying up to get ready for a night shift this week, and I have been supporting him by staying up with him. I started with an 18″ sq piece of painter’s drop cloth, and I zigzag stitched around the edge.   

 I fused interfacing onto the back of 12 different fabrics, and cut 1.5″ strips, that were 4″ long with 60 degree angles on the ends. I had to do mirrored pieces, so that I could make a chevron pattern.

 I folded the drop cloth fabric in half, and then laid the first piece down with my ruler on a 60 degree angle and fused it in place.

 I repeated the process for the whole first row, leaving a little space in between pieces.

 After everything was fused down, I used a teal thread to zigzag stitch around all of the edges.

 The original Anthropologie pillow had hand stitching across all of the patches, so I used a thick buttonhole thread to do running stitches. I not going to lie, it took forever to do, and in the pictures you can BARELY see it.

 You can see it a little better here, it’s supposed to be rustic, and reminds me a little of a kantha quilt. In real life it changed the hand of the fabric, and added a nice tie in so the pillow had a more uniform look.

for the back I used a teal cotton velvet, I put the hidden zip in an inch up from the bottom, so that the zip wasn’t in the bottom seam. I sewed around all of the edges (with the zip slightly open so I could turn it) and after all of the straight stitching, I zigzag stitched around the edges, and clipped the corners, so I could turn them crisply.

 After turning and ironing the cushion, I added 2 tassels onto the pull, just as a fun Anthro-ish detail.

 So anyway, here is the finished pillow, I made 2 of them, so they are on either end of the couch. I made another Anthro style pillow for the middle of the couch, and I will post a tutorial for it later.

If I could have done anything differently, I think I would have done longer thinner strips so the pillows looked a little more fine, I didn’t have enough fusible interfacing to do that and you can’t get any here in Korea, so I had to make what I had work. I think they look pretty great anyway, so it’s not that big a deal, I’m just a detail freak!