How To Make A Ruffled Pillow, Part 2

Yesterday, I got as far as making all the ruffles.  Today, the first thing I did was pin the ruffle to the pillow. To do this, take one piece of the pillow, and place it right side up on your sewing table. Pin the ruffle in place, with the edge of the ruffle even with the edge of the pillow fabric, and with the ruffle toward the center of the pillow:

Pin the ruffle to the pillow fabric

Straighten the ruffle and smooth it out as you go. Notice the rounded corners on this pillow–it is much easier to make a pillow with ruffles with rounded rather than square corners. Once you have the ruffle pinned all the way around, you’ll need to sew the ends of the ruffle together. To do this, pin the ends together, then take out the pins for a couple of inches on either side of the ends. Pull the ruffle away from the pillow, and stitch together. Re-pin the ruffle to the pillow fabric. Once you have done this, the piece will look like this:

Pillow with ruffle pinned in place

Take your piece with the ruffle pinned in place to the sewing machine, and stitch all the way around with a 7/8 inch seam.

Sew the ruffle to the pillow fabric, using a 7/8" seam.

Be careful while sewing this seam, because with all the layers and pins, it will be thick and you could break the needle.

Broke the needle

After you change the needle in your machine, sew around the entire piece again, 1/4 inch from the edge. Next, pin the pillow pieces together. Place the piece with the ruffle sewn on right side up on your table. Then, place the other piece right side down on top. Line up the corners and pin all the way around.

Pin the pillow pieces together

Now that you have the pieces pinned together, mark an opening on the fabric. You will start sewing at one mark, and sew around to the other mark. This will leave a place where you can turn the pillow right side out and have room to insert the stuffing.

Mark an opening for your pillow

The size of the opening depends on how large the pillow is and what you are using to stuff the pillow. This pillow is rather large, and is stuffed with polyester fiberfill, which was reused from the original pillow. I left a 15″ opening so it would be easy to stuff. If you are using a foam block, you would need to measure the block to determine what size opening you would need. You might even have to leave one whole end open like a pillowcase in order to get a foam block inside. Sew around the pillow, beginning at the first mark and ending at the second one. Turn the pillow right side out.

Insert the stuffing

Stuff the filling into the pillow. Once it is all in, pin the opening closed.

Pin the opening closed

This next step is a little difficult to complete because the stuffed pillow is very large and bulky–I had to get FabGrandpa to help me. Take the entire pillow to your sewing machine. Stitch very close to the edge of the pillow to close the opening.

Stitch the opening closed

Your pillow is now complete. I have one more to go and my pillow project will be done. Here is how the new one looks compared to the old one:

New vs Old.

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Karen Eidson