Great appliqué technique, and fresh new pillows for spring

Great appliqué technique, and fresh new pillows for spring

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• 2.20.2013

Fun project I finished over the weekend--I just love this anchor appliqué I found so much, I had to use it again after I did that anchor appliqué tee tutorial! I'm having fun with preppy, classic colors for spring. (As you may have seen in a sneak peek on my Instagram!)

I had some navy fine wale corduroy that I got at JoAnn but had nowhere to use it... I loooove the fun navy color but couldn't find the right place in the house, although it's pretty good for home dec since it's so densely woven it looks like cotton velveteen. So, I figured, time to switch out the pink velveteen pillows we've had on the bed and go for navy and white. Love doing that with bedding!

I sewed the anchor appliqués, cut out of a nice white twill with a stripey ribbed texture, onto the front pieces of my pillows before I sewed the zippers on and sewed them together. I used a technique very similar to what I did on the tee, but I used lightweight iron-on interfacing to reinforce the letters (and to make the white less see-through). Rather than use spray adhesive to attach them to the corduroy, I used some Fabric Fusion Peel & Stick Tape, which I've never used before for anything, actually! You can see in the pic below, I tore off short pieces and used them to anchor the straight lines of the appliqué down. Kollabora sent me this tape stuff for a project for my book, and I'm glad I got to try it out now! Super easy, just unroll and tear or cut, then pull off the wax paper backing. And... adhere. (I did this rather than mess with a bunch of pins to hold the appliqué down as I zigzagged it on the pillow front.)

Once I sewed the appliqués down, I trimmed the interfacing away. This was not as easy as I'd hoped... next time, I'll cut it to the exact size, or iron it on before cutting out the anchors! Aside from that, these went together great; the heavy corduroy was perfect for soft but sturdy pillow covers. Ta-da!!

Pretty fast, and very easy! Now, to freshen up the rest of the room...

I have some preppy grey and white striped bedding from west elm, but that might be a little much! And just bought more gold mirrors to put up somewhere in the bedroom, too. I love decorating bedrooms, but I guess I'm a more than a little indecisive. ;)