Zig Zag Pillow DIY

Eek! I am so excited to kick off the 2014 Sewing Rabbit Team’s tutorials today, especially with such an awesome sewing tutorial by the fabulous Nicole! Her zig zag pillow tutorial absolutely blew me away, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to premier it.  The perfect throw pillow for your home decor!  So without further ado,  I give you the zig zag pillow DIY…

Zig Zag Pillow DIY

Hi Sewing Rabbit friends. This is Nicole from Modern Handcraft and I am so excited and honestly a little bit nervous to be the very first Sewing Rabbit contributor for 2014! I am really looking forward to sharing some fun projects with you this year focusing on my favorite sewing subject – quilting! Don’t worry, it will not be all quilts all the time, I do have a couple of other tricks up my sleeve.

For my first project,  I am going to teach you how to make a great beginning quilted project – The Zig-Zag Pillow.

Materials needed:

• 1/2 yard of print fabric (Timeless Treasures – Hearts by Gail Cadden)
• 1/4 yard of solid fabric (Robert Kaufman – Kona White)
• 18″ piece of fusible fleece or quilt batting
• Spray baste or basting pins if using a non-fusible batting
• Sewing machine & notions (thread, colored thread for accent quilting, scissors, rotary cutter, straight pins, cutting board, acrylic ruler)

Step 1: 

• Cut strips of fabric 2.5″ wide from your print fabric and your solid. Then cut each strip into 4.5″ rectangles. Cut a total of 25 each to create a pillow that measures 16″ x 16″.  You will also need to cut two pieces of fabric from your pattern fabric measuring 13″ x 17″.

Step 2:

• Take one print and one solid rectangle piece and lay them facing each other at your machine. Stitch along one side with a scant 1/4″ seam.

• *TIP* Continuously sew each strip set in a long chain, or chain piece. This will make sewing your smaller rectangles together much faster

• Snip the strips to separate.
• Take to ironing board – I like to iron the back seam allowance towards the darker color so it will not show on the other side. Iron open all 25 squares.

Step 3:

• Now we will be trimming our finished squares down to 4″ square. On your cutting mat, take an acrylic ruler – I used a 4.5″ square for my example – and cut around each side.

• While lining up your square to cut find the 2″ mark on your ruler and place it down the middle seam. This will help line up your block and keep it straight.

Step 4:

• Once you have all of your squares trimmed and ready, start laying out your blocks in a zig-zag design.

• See above picture on how to layout the design. I like to work in rows finishing one at a time – keeping my pillow beside my machine in case I need to double check the layout. This layout can be a little tricky if one of the squares gets turned the wrong direction.

• Start sewing in rows, once your rows are complete stack in order. This will keep them in order at your ironing board and then back at your sewing table.

•  When ironing I like to iron open my seams at this point.

• Time to sew your rows together to complete your pillow front. Using straight pins – find your seams, line up and pin in place.

• This will keep your blocks sewn together perfectly. Once finished sewing your rows together iron the back seam allowances open and your pillow front will now be complete.

Step 5:

• Take your pillow front to your ironing board and following the directions of your fusible fleece iron them together. Fusible fleece usually stays in place really well so quilting is not necessary if you would like to omit that step. If you would rather use leftover quilt batting, spray basting or pinning in place with basting pins will be your next step.

• I chose to use a fun coordinating thread for my quilting. Since I used a fusible fleece a quilting foot was not necessary – your regular foot will work fine. This was a simple straight line stitch around the edges of my zig-zag pattern.

• Keep your needle down as you turn the corners to keep a nice sharp point – quilt as much or as little as you like 🙂

 Step 6:

• For your envelope back – take your 2 pieces of fabric measuring 13″ x 17″ and fold over one of the edges (along the 17″ length) .5″ and iron, folding over one more time .5″ and iron. Do this to both pieces of fabric.

• Back at your machine stitch the pressed fold just along the inside edge. Do this to both fabric pieces.

• With your pillow top facing up – lay one back panel face down and then the second one face down on the other side, pin in place around the edges.

• *TIP* I like to place a pin at the 4 points where the envelope back would feel stress when inserting a pillow – see above image.  This will keep the envelope back from possibly ripping when you insert or remove a pillow form. When sewing around your pillow cover back stitch at these 4 points.

• When you are finished I like to do a nice wide zig-zag stitch around the edges to complete the edges.

Step 7:

• Turn your pillow case inside out and using a knitting needle or chopstick poke out the corners.
• Add a 16″ full pillow form or a softer 18″ feather pillow form and enjoy!

I hope you enjoy making this project and find fun patterns and colors to combine to create something truly original!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and until next time…Happy Sewing!