To Die For Pillows Sort-of Tutorial

I had to redo that title 4 times because it was too long to accurately describe this so here goes the real one:

"Super Cool VERY Big Pillows That Are Too Cute and Made Out of Napkins"... if that doesn't just intrigue the crap out of you I don't know what will! And here they are...

So I saw on another blog someone stitch some cute pillows out of little dinner napkins. They were really bright colors and pretty small. I thought that this would be a great idea for my first all by myself sewing project because napkins are already measured, seamed, etc. So- off to Kohl's I went in search of some napkins.

I found four of the black napkins in the Clearance section. They are plain black, but were for Halloween, only the inside tag says this. They were 44 cents a piece- take an extra half off! So- 22 cents a napkin or 44 cents a pillow. The khaki and black were still cheap at $1.29 each take half off.

I then went to Joanns and bought some black, white, khaki, and patterned fabric. I got a half yard of each, but it was WAY more than I needed. If you are doing this on the cheap and don't want left overs, just do 1/4 yard.

I decided to use the patterned fabrics for rosette pillows and the solids that match the ruffled ones. I cut all of the pieces using my rotary cutter and mat. I cut the ruffle strips into 2 inches and the rosette pieces into 2 inch or 3 inch depending on how big you want them. I cut 8 khaki strips for one ruffle pillow and 8 black strips for the black one you Have to make sure that your fabric for ruffles is double the width of your napkin so you have room to ruffle it. I cut 8 pieces for the rosettes.

Here's the part where I call it a sort of tutorial... I got so excited to bust a move that my directions (and photos) get challenged here. :)

I took all of my piles of rosette fabric and pressed it down the middle and followed this tutorial http://madebythemamamonster.blogspot.com/2009/09/see-im-not-totally-worthless.html

I chose to do 4 rosettes on 2 black napkins, so 8 total. I then handstitched them on the top corner of one napkin... see the first picture and it will make sense.

For the ruffles I did a baste stitch through each piece of fabric. I then pulled on my string to ruffle it until I liked the look of it and placed them across the top of the napkin so that they stretched across and looked right. After I did all 8 of them I pinned them evenly on the top of one napkin. I then straight stitched them onto the napkin.

After you have the tops of all 4 napkins (almost pillows) stitched on the way you want them, you are ready to stitch your napkin tops to the bottoms. I simply lined them up, pinned them every 2 inches, and straight stitched about 2cm away from the seam the napkin already had. I left a 5 inch hole in the bottom corner of each to allow for stuffing.

Now here comes the genius part.... get ready:

I was looking for stuffing at Wal-Mart and was being super cheap... hey, we got tuition and books to pay for... I was about to get the big box of poly fill for $10 when my GENIUS of a mother pointed to the 50% off clearance snow. It is the SAME thing as polyfill. So I paid $1.50 a bag, which would be about $4.50 for the same amount as the box. I simply stuffed all 4 pillows (which are really big pillows) and used 2 full bags ($3 total). (sidenote: don't worry about my supply running low... when they went to 75% off I bought 12 more bags... just in case).

After they were pretty full I simply picked up my straight stitching to finish them.

I put one black with rosettes and one khaki in our guest room on the window seat

Two pictures... just because I am THAT excited that we no longer have a junk room but a real guest room!

The two black ones that were the first picture, now sit on the once naked white couch in the bay window of our bedroom.

So that all said this project cost me exactly $2.35 a pillow. Can't beat that with a stick!