How To Make an Outdoor Pillow

My mom taught me to be thrifty as well as crafty.  She also taught me that all good room design begins with an inspiration.  This inspiration can be a pillow, a picture or even a vase.  I remember joking when I decorated my living room calling her with excitement and telling her I had found my “inspiration” pillow!  I built my entire design and theme of my living room around that pillow.  Having an element of inspiration to guide the way is much easier than trying to pull everything you like all into one space.

So, when I was trying to think about my inspiration for my back porch, I remembered that I had a yellow and cream striped rug thrown in one of my closets.  I pulled that baby out and decided I would reuse it and build my porch décor around it.

When I was at Joann’s I was on a search to find the perfect fabric to make pillows that meshed well with my rug, but also had other colors in it.  I was so excited when I saw this yellow, coral, and green stripe fabric.  Score!  My rug and my fabric for my pillows are my inspiration pieces and what I will use as a guide to redo my porch. :)

Supplies:

– 1/2 yard of outdoor (or canvas) fabric (I already had some outdoor pillows I had made last year, so I bought enough fabric to cover those.  You may need more or less depending on the size of pillow you want to make.)

– Bag of Poly-fil (once again, amount depends on the size of pillow you want to make)

– Scissors

– Straight pins

– Sewing machine

{Step 1}:  I folded my fabric in half width wise and then cut it in half.  This gave me two pieces of fabric so I could cover both of my pillows.

{Step 2}:  Fold your fabric in half  so the nice sides (pattern sides) are facing each other.  Grab your pins and start pinning from the lower left hand corner all the way around your fabric until you are about 4 inches from the lower ride had side of your fabric.  You can stop pinning here.  Start sewing your pillow at the lower left had side all the way around and stop when you get about 4 inches away from the lower right hand side.

{Step 3}:  Turn your fabric so it is right side out.

{Step 4}:  Grab your Poly-fil.  Start by ripping off small pieces of Poly-fil and stuffing it into your pillow.  You want to do smaller pieces so your pillow will have a nice shape to it.

{Step 5}:  Once your pillow has reached your desired “stuffed” level, stop.

{Step 6}:  Take the unfinished end of your pillow, fold it over, and tuck the fabric inside of your pillow.

{Step 7}:  Pinch the two tucked ends together and pin.   Sew the area you just pinned.  This will give your pillow a nice finished edge.

Finished!  That wasn’t too hard.