When I began making my great room pillows, I had intended just to make a few with printed fabric but no other embellishment, nothing fancy, just plain pillow covers. I quickly decided that would be boring and the ideas starting flying through my head like a ball in a racketball court. Here's one idea I came up with.
I love this Alexander Henry fabric and I didn't want to add anything to distract or take away from at least one pillow cover made from it. So instead, I decided to use a little more of the fabric to add some texture.
- I cut a 16.5" square of my fabric for the front of the pillow (the pillow form is 16", plus 1/2 inch for the seam allowance).
- Then I cut long strips of fabric the same length as my pillow. I didn't plan ahead how thick I wanted the strips to be, so I would imagine making them thicker or thinner is just a personal preference. I decided to do 3 because I wanted to add just a touch of texture to the middle. More would have been nice, but I got tired of fraying!
- I carefully frayed the edges by pulling individual threads on both sides of the strips. Again, how frayed you want the edges to be is up to you. Pull more threads for a more tattered look, or less for a cleaner look.
- Pin the strips in place.
- First I stitched down the strips, close to the edges. Then I stitched down 2 more times, weaving back and forth over the strip. I liked the random look of the stitching, rather than trying to tediously keep the rows straight.
- Then I proceeded with the construction of the pillow cover (see tutorial here).
As you can see, from a distance the embellishment is not strong, and actually may not be very noticeable. However, it gives just enough interest and texture close up to stray from the plain, flat pillow cover.
