Fireflies and Jellybeans: Christmas in July with Creative Southern Home

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Christmas in July with Creative Southern Home

Welcome to Christmas in July! A fun Series to get us all inspired for my favorite holiday!

It is never too early to start planning for Christmas!

Today we have Anne from Creative Southern Home

________________________________________________________________________

Hi, I'm Anne from over at Creative Southern Home

I am so excited to be visiting today.

I love to come and visit FIREFLIES AND JELLYBEANS to see what great ideas are being featured, so what fun it is to be able to share a Christmas project with you today.

I have fallen in love with all the throw pillows that have huge flowers sewn on them. They are so flirty and fun. So I decided to make one with a Christmas theme.

Today I am going to teach you how I made a Poinsettia Pillow cover. By making just a cover for a throw pillow you already own you save money by not having to by a new pillow form, and you save space because you don't have to store a big pillow that you only use for a few weeks a year.

You will need:

-a length of red felt (enough to cover both sides of your pillow and make petals)

-red thread

-yellow scraps of fabric

-yellow thread

-cotton balls

I purchased 5/8 of yard of Felt for my project. I chose felt because it leaves a nice edge that you don't need to finish.

I started by measuring the pillow I had, in this case 21" square, then adding an inch to give room for me to sew a seam. So I cut one square that was 22"x22" for my front pillow piece. (Your measurements will be for the pillow you have.)

For the back I wanted to make a place where I could just slip the pillow in and have it close up with out having any ties or buttons.

So for the back of the pillow I cut a 25"x22" square the give me some extra length. Then I cut off a 10"x22" piece off of that. This is going to be the space that the pillow will slip in. The extra length lets it overlap so it will cover the whole pillow. (I hope that isn't too confusing)

After looking at a silk poinsettia I had I free-handed a petal and cut it out of newspaper to give me a template.

I pinned the template to my fabric that I had triple folded so I wouldn't have to cut out so much.
When you cut out your petals be sure you use your fabric wisely and place your template right up against your last cut. You will be able to make more petals out of your fabric this way.

To give my petals more life, I took them to the sewing machine and ran a gathering stitch with red thread. When you gather, put your stitch length on the highest length you have (mine is a 4) then sew the line that you want without back stitching at the beginning. This will allow you to pull the threads and gather the fabric. I sewed right up to about 2" from the point of the petal, and then I back-stitched to keep my line of stitching in place.

I then pulled one of the threads at the bottom to gather the petal a little. When I had my gather as I liked I tied the threads together at the bottom so the gather would stay.

I found the middle of the front piece of my pillow and then placed my petals around the center and pinned them in place. Then I took it to the sewing machine and sewed just the bottom of the petals.

I then added another layer of petals until I gained the look I desired. Each layer sewn just at the bottom of the petals.

When I had my petals in place I took some yellow scraps of fabric and cut 2" diameter circles to help form the middle of my poinsettia.

I took a needle and thread and ran a running stitch around the perimeter of the circle. Then stuffed each circle with a cotton ball (it was the perfect size). I then sewed up the back of the ball and hand sewed it to the middle of the flower. I used eight balls in total.

After the poinsettia was completed I sewed the pillow cover together. Front to back, right sides together. for the back I pinned the two pieces to the front overlapping them in the middle for my opening to stuff the pillow in.