Pillow Tutorial?

[librebel]

I'm nowhere near done with this small 100 X 90 piece I'm working on, but I think I want to make it into a small pillow when I'm done. I have some black fabric and basic sewing skills, but I was wondering if anyone had an easy pillow tutorial or instructions they could post a link to here. And I have made pillows before, but not any where I had to construct them around a particular front image. Advice specific to 14 count Aida would also be helpful. Thank You!

[librebel]

All right, I guess I'll write my own.

I'm working on covering a 12" pillow with a cross-stitch piece I just finished. I'd like to frame it in purple ribbon and I've found some blue fabric from an old shirt to make the sham. As this will be a present, I'll be nice and make it a zippered sham, so someone can wash it later. That means I'll be sewing in a zipper, not just making a closed pillow. And to keep me motivated, I'll be updating here. Just be patient with me as I don't use a sewing machine, so everything will be hand-stitched. (You, of course, can cheat!)

At the moment, all I have is the mockup photo below. I have to take some time to "prepare my fabric" before I start measuring, which means I have to disassemble my former shirt to get at the usable pieces. This is fun though and I highly encourage re-using old clothes if they're going to goodwill anyway. Besides, if I have enough, I might just be able to avoid sewing one seam, but we'll just have to wait and see. See you after the seam-ripping for the measuring!

[librebel]

All right, that old shirt turned out to have double backstitched and whipstitched seams, so I decided to cut the cloth after 30 minutes of seam-ripping. I did a VERY rough cut of it and (at first) left one seam together. Then I realized that the shirt's side seam was curved (cause I'm a curvy lady) which wouldn't work for a square pillow. So, here's me measuring 12" x 12" with my trusty steel square. (I LOVE this tool. So much easier than a ruler and has just enough weight.)

[librebel]

And the resulting square outline drawn in Sharpie. Note: you want to be certain you're working with what will be the INSIDE of the pillow before drawing on the fabric. No, it did not bleed through onto my craft table even though I didn't put cardboard behind it.

[librebel]

Make sure both pieces of the fabric will fit the square outline and then pin together. I've left one end open for the zipper. And, as my measuring is a little tight, I've decided the open end will be the end where the sew line is closest to the edge of the fabric as the zipper's fabric may bridge the gap.

[librebel]

After pinning, it's time to backstitch! I considered basting it, but I wasn't sure if that meant I'd have to whipstitch it after for durability. The backstitch actually turned out rather well in terms of holding up to pulling at the seams. I did use thread doubled over though and that helps. The little tiny stitches on the right of the first photo are my backstitches. I managed to do it all by hand in three hours, but I'm a slow sewer and I was trying to keep the seam straight and the jersey taut, which meant I was constantly stopping to check the straightness, etc. The second photo is from the midway point.

[librebel]

All right, let's look at those seams! Wow, that looks like hell. Okay, let's trim them. Better. (Don't worry if they look a little off. This will be the inside of the sham that nobody sees.)

[librebel]

Time to test it on the pre-made pillow insert. It fits! I'm not sure why my camera made the fabric look like that, but the corners are nicely rounded and the fabric is soft almost-pilly jersey. The second photo shows how much extra cloth I have left on the open side to fit the zipper. Better more than less!

[librebel]

And while we have the sham on the insert, why not start placing the center stitched piece? Roughly centered and pinned while on the insert (but not to the insert). Ignore the white space beyond the blue of the design when centering as that will be covered with purple ribbon. The second photo shows the sham removed from the insert. It looked square to me then and it still does now, so I'm probably going to baste in place over the weekend. I'd keep working on it now, but I have a job interview on Friday that requires studying. I'll let you know how bad it is to sew with all those pins on my next update!

[librebel]

Okay, I was going to stop posting on this thread because I'm starting to feel a little over my head. But I guess this'll document my learning as I go, so apologies for some of these newbie mistakes.

I haven't made much progress over the holiday weekend either. *shame* I'm hoping to churn out four job applications today and get back to sewing this trim on ASAP. Now, I'm feeling even less confident I'll finish Christmas presents on time.

Anyway, I backstitched the square of Aida onto the sham around all four sides. That went fairly well though I forgot to take a picture of it. So, the first picture is of the piece backstiched onto the sham with the bottom ribbon pinned onto it. I decided to pin it through the sham completely so I could work on the top of the ribbon and then the bottom of the ribbon without dealing with pins through my hands.

The second photo shows the bottom piece of trim sewn onto the sham. I tried to keep it tight with the Aida cloth while rounding the fabric like it will be once it's on the pillow. This made for some slightly crooked ribbon when flat, but you don't notice it when it's on the pillow. I also tried sewing the mitred corners of the ribbon onto the sham with poor results, so I've recently decided to ditch the mitred corner for overlapping trim. Hopefully, it'll look nice when it's done.

And hopefully I'll be done soon enough to finish the recipient's sisters' presents! Otherwise, half the family will be getting IOU's.