SNOWFLAKE PILLOWS (tutorial)

We awoke to record cold temperatures today in Minnesota. It was -17 degrees on the thermometer, with wind chills of minus 40 to minus 55 degree Fahrenheit.  Now I'd say that is COLD!  It's a great day to stay inside where it's warm and cozy, and share a winter craft.

You may remember seeing my snowflake pillow in my Christmas Home Tour.  I've had several people ask about them.  Today I'll give you a tutorial on how I made them.

I was inspired to make snowflake pillows when I saw the cute pillows Anna at Noodlehead made.  She gives a free template for the snowflake.




Here's what you will need if you'd like to make some snowflake pillows.

-white felt fabric
-blue felt fabric (or color of choice)
- rick rack
- button
- thread
- snowflake flannel fabric
- heat' n bond
- rick rack trim
- snowflake template
-poly-fill pillow stuffing

After assembling your materials, the first thing to do is to cut your snowflake.
I printed it onto paper and then traced the pattern onto the heat' n bond.  Using my iron, I applied the heat ' n bond to the blue felt fabric.  Following the lines on the snowflake, I used an exacto knife to cut it out.

Cut your pillow cover pieces from the white felt or flannel fabric.  You can make pocket pillow, or even buy a pillow and adhere your snowflake to it.  I chose to make a pocket pillow.  You can see my instructions on making a pocket pillow here.

Once you have your pillow sewn, place the right side (top) of your pillow face up.  Place your cut snowflake (or snowflakes) on the pillow. For one of the pillows, I made smaller snowflakes to go with the large snowflake.  Pin them to hold them secure.  Using the heat 'n bond makes this a easy project.  The next step is to iron the snowflake onto the pillow.  When finished ironing, just remove the paper from the fabric.

The other pillow I used a small piece of snowflake fabric, rick rack and white felt fabric to create.  In the one corner of the white fabric, I sketched an outline of a snowflake freehand.  Then using my sewing machine just did a star stitch on the sketched pattern.  After the snowflake was sewn, I sewed a button in the middle of it.

Taking the white felt fabric with my sewed snowflake, I sewed it to the snowflake flannel fabric.  Once sewed, I added some blue rick rack trim on top of the seam.  I didn't make this pillow a pocket pillow but created a pillow by using a  piece of felt for the back of the pillow. This was cut to the same size as the front of the pillow (14 1/2 X 14 1/2 inches) and sewed them together using a half inch seam allowance.  I left a small opening on the top of the pillow.  After trimming the corner seams, turn the pillow right side out.  Using poly-fill pillow stuffing, I stuffed the pillow.  After the pillow was stuffed, I hand stitched the opening shut.

Here's a close up of the sewn snowflake.

These pillows are unique and easy way to incorporate the serenity of snowfall with out the chill of the cold outdoors!  I'm planning to not only use them at Christmas time, but also as a winter accent for my living room.

I also created a few pillows for gifts.  I did a little something different to them.  Don't worry, I share them in another post.