I shared the 5 new pillows I recently made for the family room yesterday, with the promise that today I would get around to posting the tutorial for the Anthropologie inspired velvet tassel pillow,

 

My pillow is a knockoff of Anthropologie’s Firenze Velvet Tassel Pillow,

 

My teal velvet fabric color was even pretty perfect; I was trying to only use stash items, so when I saw this picture, and knew I had teal velvet fabric in my stash, I just had to reproduce it! I began my reproduction by going through my wool embroidery thread stash, I decided to do wool yarn instead of cotton thread, because I have some crewel fabric in my house, and I thought wool would help be a tie in.

Once I had my colors, I took my 3″ ruler, and I taped some thick pearl cotton pieces to either side, with the pieces folded in half for strength.

Next I wrapped my wool around the ruler 20 times.

I then made a really tight square knot on either side, out of my pearl cotton,

and pinched the sides so that they couldn’t shift, and cut through the top layer of threads on the 1.5″ line on my ruler.

While still holding the sides nice and tightly, I cut the bottom layer on the 1.5″ line.

This gave me 2 tassels for every time I wrapped the ruler,

I then folded both sides down, and wrapped a thread around the top of the tassel 4 times, to make it an actual tassel as opposed to a colorful mustache 🙂 I finished the wrapping with just a square knot. I don’t expect it to come undone since the wool will felt into itself a little. Next trim everything up so it looks good. (Leave the knot ends as long as the tassel, if you cut it too close to the knot, it most likely would come undone.)

And then do that again, what seams like a million times, but really only until you have 56 1.5″ tassels.

 

Next I cut 2 squares out of the velvet, I cut the one a little longer than the other, so I could cut a strip off 2″ up from the bottom, and still have enough seam allowance to add the zip and make it a 20″ square.

As you can see I added the zip a couple of inches up; this is so that the zip doesn’t have to be in the same seam as the tassels, and it was done on the original Anthropologie pillow too.

I added tassels to my zip pull as well. (this picture is from my other pillows, there are 3 tassels on my tassel pillow, I just forgot to take a picture)

I sewed a basting stitch all around the front of the pillow, so that I knew how far in to pin the tassels around the edge, then I hand tacked them all down and added the back, machine sewing with the front on top, so I could sew just inside the basting stitching, so the very back of each tassel was caught just a touch. (which makes them stand up nicely when flipped right side out) I didn’t have the corners on at this stage, because I only had slightly thicker wool in cream, and I wanted to only hand sew them on so I didn’t break any needles. DON’T forget to leave your zip open a little when going around all 4 sides, or turning the pillowcase becomes not very fun.)

Anyway, here is my finished product…(The cream tassels were 2″ tassels too, so that’s why they are bigger in the finished product.)

I super love how it looks in the room, I love that the colors are custom and tie into my stuff, and that I didn’t spend any money on this project since it was all stash busting! (which is much better than Anthropologie’s $68!)

 

The kids love to flop allover these pillows too, which makes me feel better that I didn’t spend that much on it either!

As a sort of funny side story having nothing to do with pillows, Emmie (11) has been asking Paul and I a lot of questions about how we first met, etc. lately (she says it’s because she wasn’t around then!) The other day she was quizzing Paul, and she asked him about when we first kissed. (there’s a WHOLE long story there 🙂 ) and Paul was telling her and getting really animated about the whole thing, while I interjected my version every now and again. When Paul was finished Emmie asked him “what did you first think afterwards?” and I guess without really thinking Paul said “that your mom was a really good kisser” Suddenly Isaac, and Emmie looked at Paul with horror, and I think it only hit Paul right then, that maybe that was THE last thing a kid wants to hear about their parent 🙂 Ha, ha, TMI for sure; I guess you ask a silly question? We are now officially old enough to be embarrassing and gross rather than cool or romantic.

Anyway, thanks for checking my project out, I would love to know what you think, and if you have any plans to make a tassel pillow too!!!