Couch Makeover {pillow #1}

If you are curious what this post is all about, click here for the {before}

I knew I wanted to make each of the new pillows for the couch textural and different from each other.  When I saw this tutorial from Tonia at The Gunny Sack on Someday Crafts, I knew right away it would be one of them.  

Gorgeous, right?  Here’s how mine turned out:

Mmmmm.  LOVE it!! 🙂  I pretty much followed Tonia’s tutorial, but I made just a few changes:

I did not use her templates.  Instead I just cut the felt into rectangles that measured 1″ by 1 1/2″, then just rounded the corners.  I did this about 800 times.  Yes, you read that right, 800!

I did not lay out all the petals for each round.  I just started with one and when I was almost finished sewing that one down I added the next one.  I did stop sewing and lifted the presser foot (needle in the down position) each time I added a petal so I didn’t get it folded over.

This is what the back looked like when I was done sewing the petals on.  I used two different size circles for the base- the 4″ circles each had 50 petals on them and the 3″ circles had 25 petals each.  I started out with 10 of each size flower and added 4 more smaller flowers at the very end.

To finish off the centers I took a 2-3″ long 1″ strip and folded it accordion style- stitching some gathers in the center.  Then, I hand stitched 1-2 of these in the center of each flower, and hand stitched the flowers to the pillow cover. (made with complimentary cotton fabric- envelope style closure)  I stitched them on AFTER I made the cover because I didn’t want to have to deal with avoiding all those petals sewing the side seams. 🙂

It did take some time, but it was worth it!!

Thanks Tonia for the awesome tutorial and inspiration!  My couch and I are in your debt!!

And, we have some progress! Please forgive the funky lighting- some of these pictures had to be taken at night, and we’ve been having some pretty intense thunderstorms that mess up my afternoon lighting. 😉
Come back tomorrow for Pillow #2!
xoxo,
Amy
Linked up to Friday Flair at Whipperberry!  Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts, BFF party at the Answer is Chocolate and Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and jello