I love bows. I recently bought some (a lot) of pink felt that I originally was going to use for a different DIY project, before deciding that I really didn’t want to do it. So for a few months, I tried to figure out what in the world I was going to do with all this felt, until today, that is, when I had this brilliant idea, combining my love of bows with the never-ending supply of pink felt.
Supplies
1 yard of cotton or home decor fabric (I’m using cotton.)
1/2 yard of felt (Mine was 72″ wide!)
A printer to print out my ever-so-lovely bow pattern
Needle
Thread that matches felt
Instructions
We’re going to cut everything first because I really hate cutting things out. I’m absolutely terrible at it. Theoretically I think you might be able to do this by sewing the pillow cover first then adding the bow, but it’s probably easier this way anyway.
Let’s start with the body pieces.
You’ll need to cut three pieces out of the cotton or home decor fabric, one 19″x19″, one 19″x15″, and the last 19″ by 12″.
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| I turned the 19″x15″ piece on its side for the sake of getting all of the pieces to fit into the photo nicely. Cut all of your pieces the same direction, friends. |
Okay, toss those pieces aside, we’re moving on to the bow.
Start by printing and cutting the bow pattern I drew for this. I did mine on cardstock, but that’s just because I’m terrible at cutting and it’s harder to cut into the pattern when when the pattern is on cardstock. It scrunches the fabric up a little bit when pinned into the fabric, but it isn’t really that big of a deal. You’ll need to print two copies of the pattern.
Tape the matching “Front” sides together (One half will be upside down).
Pin the pattern to the felt and start cutting! After both pieces are cut out, it should look something like this:
Take one of your felt scraps and cut a 3″ rectangle out in the width you want for the center of the bow. You’ll need this for the next step.
Now to construct the bow.
Take the two “Back” ends of the bow and overlap them slightly behind the bow center. Pin the overlapping ends and the center of the bow together. Take the bow tails piece and place it behind the bow tails so the center of the bow tails, the overlapping bow ends, and the center of the bow are all on top of each other. Take the pins out of the overlapping ends and center of the bow and repin it so that the center of the bow tails, the overlapping bow ends, and the center of the bow are all pinned together.
This is what the front should look like:
This is what the back should look like:
The bow should be approximately 14 1/2″x7″
Okay, now to attach the bow to the pillow.
Grab that 19″x19″ piece of fabric that you tossed to the side earlier. Place the bow so that the sides are 2 1/4 inches from the sides of the pillow base, and each end is 6 inches from the top and bottom of the pillow base. Take the bow center piece you cut earlier and tuck one end under the center of the bow.
Wrap the rest of the bow center around the bow. Attach the center of the bow to the pillow base by entering the needle through the side of the bow center and then down, then back up, and out the opposite side. Be careful not to catch the top of the bow center. This is easily one of the most difficult steps of the entire process.
Tack the sides of the bow to the pillow base by bringing the needle up only through the bottom layer of bow and back down. Do this to the top and bottom of each bow side.
Hint: To make your bow “poofier” sew closer to the center of the bottom or top of the bow half instead of closer to the corner. I found this out the hard way.
Now that you’ve attached the bow to the pillow base, it’s time to make the actual pillow case! Take the 19″x15″ piece and 19″ by 12″ piece and fold one of the 19″ sides over by 1/2″ twice and sew. I folded mine once and sewed, then folded it over again because it was easier.
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| Aw look at that nice, finished edge. 🙂 |
After finishing the edge on both pieces. Take the 19″x19″ piece with the bow and lay it out face up. Place the 19″x15″ on top of it face down, matching the “right” sides of the fabric together.
Take the 19″x12″ piece and lay it on top of the 19″x15″ piece. They should overlap.
Pin everything together and sew! Use a 1/2″ seam allowance so the pillow case’s final size is 18″x18″. Turn it right side out, stuff it with a 18″x18″ pillow form, and you’re done!
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| I didn’t make this for the outdoors, my room just has terrible lighting. |
I’m going to need to make a lot of these pillows to get rid of my abundance of felt but hey, at least they’re cute! If you don’t want to go through the process of making one of these, I’ll be listing them on my Eva Kim Designs, my Etsy shop, so you can just skip ahead to the joy of having a super cute pillow case!
