Loominous Pillow

Do you ever just have an idea pop into your head and you need to go make it immediately? That happened here last month. For some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about make a pillow with raw strips of fabric. Of course, it was during the Christmas holiday and there was no "just popping into my sewing space and making a pillow" happening. I finally had a chance a couple weeks ago though, and I'm so happy with how it turned out!

I took all sorts of pictures while I was making this pillow, with the intention of sharing all the steps. Then I promptly reformatted my memory card a few days later, forgetting they were on there. Uggg! I'll just have to talk you through it! My initial vision was bit different than how the pillow turned out, but you can make changes to make it a different size or shape.

I used Anna Maria Horner's Loominous fabric, and cut strips 1" x 21". (This was just the length of my fat quarters, I would have made them 18" if I had a half yard bundle).

I cut a quilting cotton fabric square and a batting fabric square, 21" x 21". (I ended up not needing it so big, but my original vision was a square pillow.) I laid my strips out in rainbow order, and starting with the bottom, sewed them onto the fabric-batting sandwich. I used about a 1/4" seam when sewing the raw strips on. Every time I added a strip, I moved up the pillow 1/2".

Of course when I got to the end of my strips, my pillow was not big enough to be a square. I decided to make it into a lumbar pillow, rather than cut more strips and make it a square. I finished it up with Essex linen on the back, and just stuffed it will pillow filling.

Obviously with the raw edges, this isn't going to be a heavy use pillow that I hand down to my great grandchildren. :) But it does make me happy and it's a very fun addition to my sewing room.

If I wanted to make it a little bigger and more sturdy, I would probably try cutting my strips at 3" rather than 1". I'd then iron them in half to 1-1/2", so there is no raw edge at the bottom. That would also give me a taller pillow in the end. Another project for another day!

Loominous can be found at the following shops:

Sew Modern

Gotham Quilts