craftgrrl | Shabby flowered pillow

I have been in love with these three dimensional flowered pillows ever since I laid eyes on them. Since I haven't seen any under $45 here, I decided to make my own with fabric I had on hand, so this cost me nothing but time.

I'm putting a tutorial for those who are interested, under the

Let me start out by warning you that this is going to take a lot of time. For this pillow, I made 70 flowers formed of 4 petals each. Do the math.

I used very sheer soft cotton and ripped my fabric into three inch strips. Then I cut the strips into three inch squares.

Fold your three inch square in half. You'll see that the fabric is wrinkled, it doesn't matter. It adds to the shabbiness of the look.

Fold in half again.

Using sharp scissors, cut a rounded edge off the square, cutting off the raw edged sided. Wow, I need a manicure.

You'll end up with circles or in this example, sort of circles - don't sweat it, they don't need to be absolutely perfect. I'm sure *some* of mine were circles.

Grasp the center of the circle and fold it up, aiming for something that resembles a flower petal.

Using a needle and thread, tack the folds into place with a few stitches. Do not cut your thread, each petal will be sewn on the same strand of thread, this makes for way way less work.

Form a second petal, tack it with a few stitches, then stitch it to your first petal.

Repeat this process until you have four petals attached, then knot off and cut your thread. You should end up with something that looks like this.

Make 69 more. Have fun with that.

When you have stopped making 70 flowers in your sleep you'll be ready to attach them to your pillow cover.

I cut out a 16 inch square to make a cover for a 14 inch pillow form. I reinforced the layer which would have the flowers sewn to it. I used a heavy gauge cotton for that, and I basted them together one inch all around from the raw edges.

Then I drew out a grid. I measured out two inches from the raw edge and marked where the flowers would be sewn at a distance of 1 1/2 inches from each other. I staggered the second row, still placing the flowers 1 1/2 inches apart, and 1 1/2 inches down from the first row, but in the middle of where the flowers were placed in the first row. This photo will hopefully show what I did, more clearly than I can explain it.

Transfer your dots onto the right side of your fabric and start tacking your flowers in place. I used a running thread to do this. Take one reinforcing stitch, then tack your flower down with a few stitches. Pull your thread to the wrong side and come up at the next dot and take a reinforcing stitch, then tack down the flower and repeat to cover the pillow.

Once your flowers are sewed on, stitch the back and front of the cover together, making sure you don't catch any of your petals in the seam. I sewed a one inch seam around the pillow.

Either sew in a zipper or sew your last side shut.

Pillow!