Throw Pillows

Last night was craft night, and my project was to recover my living room throw pillows. The pillows were hand-me-downs from my Grandma. I've had them for a few years. They're a little big, but comfy as all get out for a Sunday afternoon football induced nap. The original covers were brocaded and zippered shut. Here's the before:

So I picked up some felt at Hancock Fabrics. I figured felt would be (a) cheap and (b) easy to work with--no fraying. The living room has kind of a green theme. I used brown, turquoise, and green for the felted coasters I made a while back, and I loved that color scheme, so I followed it for the pillows.

I have a confession to make: I've never sewed a zipper before. I stopped taking clothing to the fair as a young 4-H'er before I got to that level of difficulty. I'm only minimally confident of my ability to sew buttonholes. These two problems are usually enough to discourage me from sewing more advanced projects.

This time was no exception. I decided to just do an overlapping open back. But when I finished, it gapped open too much, so I sewed a strip of velcro on each one to keep it closed. Here's a tip. If you only have adhesive-backed velcro, wait until you can buy some regular velcro. My needle got super gummy tacking the adhesive-backed kind onto the felt--and consequently, so did my fingers, thread, and everything else.

Anyway, here's the final project. I'm pretty proud of them.