Pattern Remix Guest: Ashley from the Handmade Home

For my project, I wanted to infuse a few shots of color into my bedroom for the summer months, and decided what better way to do that, than with a lumbar pillow?

Not only a lumbar pillow, I thought to myself, but a patchwork lumbar pillow.

‘Seamstress, I am not’ is a constant disclaimer that I mention on my blog. I don’t really ‘do’ patterns. But I guess if I can figure it out, then anyone can. I find myself constantly making up my own little system to see what works best for our home, and I roll with it. But for my official remix, I took the basic pattern of a simple pillow, and expanded it from there.

I wanted to challenge myself by only using other pillows: literally tearing them down, and building them back up into something large and in charge for our bed. So this project was composed solely of older pillows + our dining room table cloth, with my only purchase a body pillow at its center for a nice, fluffy filling.

First things first: I cut them up into varying widths of little slivers, once I had a basic idea of what would look good, where. Here it is in the middle of that process. I usually play on the floor to figure out what I’m doing. My oldest walked in while I was working away, quite traumatized that I messed up all the pillows I always ask him to treat nicely. {read: stop from tackling from second story heights}. He really wanted to know what I was doing with “all my nice pillows.” It was funny to me that my five year old was so disturbed by such a sight.

I attached each piece of fabric, one by one, as anyone would a pillow. It varied, depending on what I was attaching, but it basically included putting each piece of fabric, right sides together {or facing each other with the wrong or plain sides, out} sewing on the appropriate side, and then flipping the new piece back over to join the ‘design crew.’ The photo above is an example of what I mean by right sides together. I’d hemmed the edges first, so please dismiss my temporary insanity. I then caught on to the fact that I could be lazy, so I stopped bothering, and simply attached, one by one with the raw edges.

Here’s a photo of it on the reversed side. As always, iron that back side, to give it a smoother finish.

For the extra, frayed strips, I simply pinned them down (as seen in the far right) {prevented my two year old from stepping on them} and did a top stitch to attach it.

I then continued with my little system, to cover the exposed, attached edge by once again, putting the next piece of fabric (right side in, face to face, wrong side out) + sewing the correct edge. I flipped it back over again, and that step, over and over again, is how I created my patchwork pillow.

Once they were all attached, I realized that each piece would need to be leveled out (I was kind of rolling with it since these were created from salvaged pieces.) I evened it up with a piece of scissors. So I placed my pillow in the middle, and leaving plenty of space for hems, trimmed around.

After doing the same with my back piece, I hemmed each end of each side. This was four hems, total.

Next, it was time to make the ties that would go at each end of the pillow. When I decided on the width I wanted it to be, I made a small cut in the linen-like material I was working with and simply tore it off in generously thick strips. I liked the frayed edge approach, so I left them as-is. With two per side, per hem, I had eight ties total.

I then took the sides that were not hemmed without ties: the top and bottom of the pillow, and sewed them together. This included taking the top layer with all the patchwork, and the bottom, solid rectangle (linen-like material layer) facing them inward, with their right sides together. Just like your regular ‘ol basic pillow.

I sewed both top and bottom sides together, and turned it right side out. Stuffing my body pillow on the inside for a secure fit…

TADA! My remix: a patchwork lumbar pillow was complete.

It’s not perfect. Nothing I ever do, is…but I do love it. I think that the beauty is in the imperfections. A touch of color for our summer bedding.

Hurray for pattern remixes!