Bolster Pillow Tutorial (Deployment Project #81)

Let’s use all those sweet pleats I showed you how to make yesterday and use them on a bolster pillow!!

First I embroidered my words, “Always” & “Forever” on a piece of white fabric.

Then I cut this fabric down to pillow size.  For a bolster pillow, I cut it 2” wider than the pillow (for your seam allowance) and then - - this is really technical - - I wrap the fabric around my pillow and overlap it by 6” ( to allow for my button closure)

Next, it is time to attach the pleating.  Lay the pleating, even with your cut edge of your fabric…

Sew your pleating to your cover - - remember, you will want the finished edge of your pleating facing in and the rough edge matching up with the cut edge of your fabric.    Attach it from top to bottom – – we will finish the edge next.

Making the button closure:

 

Make a 1” hem along the top of your pillow cover.  Iron and sew it down.

 

Find the center of  your pillow cover – along the edge that you just sewed – and mark  it with a small dot.  This is where your center button hole is going to be.  Make a mark every 3” to the right and the left.  I usually try to have an odd number of buttons.  It just seems to look better (usually I go with 5).

 

Sew all your button holes.

A little trick for opening up your button holes is to put a straight pin at on end of the hole…

 

Poke your seam ripper into the opposite end of the button hole…

 

Slide your seam ripper up until it hits the straight pin.  See wasn’t that a fin little trick?!  ;)

Now it time to make your pillow a perfect fit.

Lay your cover face down…

 .

Place your pillow on top…

 

Fold your unfinished edge over your pillow…

 

Fold your button hole edge over the unfinished edge to determine exactly where you should finish the other side.  Remember that you want an overlap so that you can attach your buttons!!  Finish this edge exactly the same way that you did the first one.

 

Now, with the fabric wrapped around your pillow again, it is time to mark where your buttons are going to go.

 

Simply fold back at each button hole and make a small dot.

 

 

Sew all your buttons on.

 

Now, all we have left is to put the sides on your pillow.  Cut out 2 circles of fabric that are 1” wider all the way around than you pillow.

 

Clip along the rough edge of the side you attached your ruffle to - - this will help ease the seam as you sew around the circle.

Now, line up your end of rough ruffle edge that has the button hole end with the edge of one of your circles.  Sew this all the way around your circle overlapping the end that has the buttons attached over the button hole edge.

 

Repeat this with the other circle.

 

Turn your pillow right side out.

Insert your pillow form…

Button your buttons and enjoy your finished pillow!!

 

Knife – Edge Pleats Tutorials (Deployment Projects #78 –80)

When I made these sweet pillows for a friend of mine I knew I wanted to add some knife-edge pleats to the edge of them, so I thought I would take pictures as I went and make a little tutorial for you.  I’m all heart like that!!

I love me some pleats!

 

I used them on this chair…

This one too…

On these pillows…

Even as trim on this dress.

So, if I use pleats so often, they must be fairly easy to do!  You know - I don’t do anything that is too time consuming or too detail oriented!!

The trick to knife –edge pleats is this little tool right here:

It is a ruffler attachment for your sewing machine.

I found mine at Joann's, I believe it was right around $20 - - of course I used my 40% off coupon - - but it is definitely worth every penny I paid for it!  They fit on most any machine - -you just need to know if you have a short or long shank.  You may want to check with your machine manufacturer and see if they have a specific one for your brand of machine, but this one is a general one that fits on all my machines.

To attach the ruffler, remove the screw that holds your presser foot ankle in place.  Set your presser foot to the side.

The ruffler attaches with the forked bar on the right side of the foot, around the needle clamp screw, and then the presser foot screw gets put back in place to tighten the ruffler to the machine.

Now that the ruffler is attached, it’s time to get our fabric ready!

Cut your fabric in 4” strips - - remember you are going to need about 3 times the length of your final product, so cut lots of strips!  I try to error on the side of making more than I need!

 

I find it is easiest to attach all those strips and make one long strip.  The easiest way to do that is to overlap your fabric (right sides together) at a 90 degree.

Then sew them together in a diagonal line from corner to corner.  Trim off the excess fabric.

 

Now you will have one LONG strip of fabric!  Take that strip of fabric fold it in half  and iron it.  So you will have a super long 2” wide strip.

Start with one end of your strip and slip the fabric between the feeder and the base of the ruffler attachment.  (Your fabric will not be against your machine)

Now you let the machine and your ruffler do the work!   This is where you can choose  the length and depth of your pleats.  You can choose to have a pleat made every 1, 6, or 12 stitches.  By adjusting your stitch length you can adjust how long you want your pleat.  There is a screw on the front of the pleater, and by adjusting that you can adjust the depth of your pleats.  It is something you just have to play with a little bit to get the look that you want.

 
 

When I am putting my fabric through the pleater, I try to keep my left hand on the pleats that are being formed.  It helps the fabric run through smoothly and holds the pleat until your machine stitches it in place.  Make sure the fabric you are feeding in is very loose - -it will not be able to pleat if it is trying to pull the fabric up to your machine.

 

Aren’t they pretty?  :)

The very last step is to take that long strip of pleats and iron them so they are nice and crisp.  Make sure you set them on your ironing board so that the pleats are facing to the left and your iron can just run right over them.

 

Easy huh?  I told you it wasn’t hard!   Tomorrow, I am going to show you how to make a bolster pillow, using your knife-edge pleat for trim!!

I thought I was halfway there….

Have you noticed an absence of posts lately?

No, I haven’t forgotten about blog world, but life definitely comes before blogs!!  Life kind of smacked us in the face this past week. 

We started the week off with both kids and myself sick - - not fun :( 

That was followed by trips to the dentist for fillings -  ouch!! (Why do those drills have to sound so horrible?)

And all that fun was punctuated with Handsome Hubby calling and telling me that his orders had been changed and he will now be gone longer than originally planned.    The bad news is that he is gong to be gone a  lot longer than planned, but the good news is that he is now going to get to come home for R&R  (of course, R&R is after he was originally supposed to come home, but at least we will get to see him for a little bit before he has to go back!)  That is just one of those things that you need some time to process.  So, after a week of processing and working through some emotions, I am feeling like myself again.

This is how I found my sweet baby girl sleeping a few weeks back.  She is sleeping with a picture of her and her daddy.  He truly is her hero!!

The hardest part of course was having to tell the kids.  They have been so strong and they have been such troopers, it made me so sad to have to tell them that the end wasn’t as close as we thought it was.  

So, one of our projects this week was to make a paper countdown chain.  The kids worked hard one morning during school and glued all 85 chain links together.  That is the number of days until Handsome Hubby comes home for R&R.  We will make a new one to represent our final countdown after he goes back.

That’s a lot of chain links!!  The good news, is that it could be worse and right now, we are just focusing on the positives.  He has been able to talk to us a lot, he is still coming home and it still isn’t a year – we could have it way worse!!

 

I’ve had some people ask for some tutorials on some of my past projects - -so this week, along with some of the projects I have been working on, I am going to do some special request tutorials!!  The first one, that I will post tomorrow, is how to make mini- knife edged pleats.