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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

Anthro L-O-V-E pillow tutorial

I've been really into creative and funky pillows recently, loving using up my scrap pile and making beautiful stuff to brighten my living room.  You may remember tutorials in the past couple months for the following...

This pillow:
Its other side:
This pillow:
And its back:

Of course I am inspired by Anthropologie's amazing pillow collection.  One that I'm happy to show you a tutorial of today is one that I think is no longer for sale.  I saw it recently on their homepage as part of a room,  but they don't sell it and I'm guessing it's a few seasons old.  Does anyone remember?
Well, I decided it would be fun to try to make one like it!

Here's a tutorial!

You will need:
  • Pillow form
  • Base pillow cover fabric (2 pieces, each slightly more than the size of your pillow, e.g. 16"x20")
  • Zipper (I prefer invisible ones)
  • Scrap fabrics to choose from
  • Fabric marker or pencil
  • Spray adhesive and/or pins
  • (and sewing machine, iron, and scissors, of course!)

Steps:

  • Same as always, start with your pile o' scraps.  I like to pull them all out and look at them at once to decide what looks good together.
  • Pick a base/background fabric.  To be like the original I used a light tan solid, but you could use any cool fabric you want.  Something sturdier than quilting cotton is best.  Cut out your rectangle 1" bigger in length and width than your pillow form.
  • Sketch out where you want your letters to be.  I used fabric marker and played around with the shape and placement of the big letters.  You may want to try with pencil and paper first to get the idea.
  • Pick out the fabrics you want to use for each letter.  Again, I copied the original, but you could get really creative and have a lot of fun.  You could do a theme, even!
  • Placing the fabric over the letters you've drawn, cut the fabric along the shape of the sketches.  Get the basic shape first, then go along and trim off little bits so they match.
  • Use spray adhesive or pin down your letters.
  • It's hard to tell from the Anthro picture, but what worked for me was a tan zig-zag stitch around the edge of each letter.
  • Don't pull too much as you sew, like I did... it got a little wrinkly.  Luckily when I stretched it over the pillow form it flattened out!
  • Attach to whatever you're using for the pillow back.  Stay tuned till next week when I do a tutorial for the other side of this pillow!!
The final product:

It is a lot of fun!  Of course I don't have such a beautiful room to put it in as the stylists for the Anthropologie catalog, but it's a nice way to give a room a new look.  And pillows are so fast and easy compared to dresses. ;)

8 comments

  1. If you put interfacing on the back of the fabric where you are going to sew the letters on it won't wrinkle.

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  2. Wonderful tutorial! I love your pillow--pun intended.

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  3. This is really cute! Thanks for such a great fabric scrap idea:)

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  4. Thanks!

    Yes, interfacing absolutely would have helped with the stretching, or even a piece of simple cotton behind the twill. Or, using a heavier-weight fabric for the base would prevent the problem!

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  5. So cute! Iron-on interfacing can help with the wrinkling, or use some Wonderunder to adhere the letters first to avoid them shifting around. LOVE it! :)

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  6. Adorable! Do you just recover pillows? I've found some super cute fabric at the store and wanted to make them into pillows but was planning on stuffing them. Whenever I've done it in the past I feel like they always turned out lumpy though! :( Any tips? And where is a good place to buy stuffing?

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  7. @Melanie, I make pillow covers all the time--but I put them on pillow forms. You can make your own out of stuffing (from a craft or fabric store), but why not just buy pillow forms ready-made?

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