How to Make Floor Pillows

Remember when I bought this fabric here using my DIY color pallet?  Ya..that was a long time ago, thanks for the reminder.  I finally got around to whipping up some floor pillows to add some extra seating to the house since the living room currently only has two chairs. 

I measured the space so the pillows would fit perfectly under the windows.  My fabric was 34 inches long by 22 inches wide.  First start by pinning the pattern sides of the fabric together.  Sew a 1/4 inch seam on all four sides of the pillow leaving an 8 inch gap for stuffing.

Turn the pattern right side out, making sure all corners are square.  Iron the seams of the pattern.  Fold the fabric of the 8 inch gap under when you are ironing to make it flush with the rest of the seams. 

Sew a 1/4 inch seam around the whole pillow, leaving the 8 inch gap open.

Stuff the pillow with stuffing.  I found mine at Michael's.  Pin the 8 inch gap closed and match up the seam lines and sew closed.  Fluff your pillows and enjoy!

Boom.  I just added two extra seats to my living room!  The excitement is just bubbling up out of my pores.

These are a really easy alternative the other options that are out there for throw pillows.  And the fact that they can be customized to fit virtually any space isn't too shabby either.

Not to mention that I am in love with the fabric and how it ties into the rest of the room. And of course who could resist a whole room view?  Not this girl!  If you didn't notice I also tweaked my mantle a little bit to make it look a little less busy.  Now, if I could only find some suitable curtain fabric!

Picking out Fabric

Armed with my free DIY décor color pallet from this post I ventured out with my mother-in-law to the fabric store.  Our quest was to find the perfect fabric for drapes, I was picturing something in navy.  After we painted the paneling in the living room we definitely needed something to soften the look, and drapes seemed like a great solution.  Well…I found the perfect drape fabric at approximately $18.00 a yard, and that was on 50% clearance.  I needed 12 yards so that would bring the total to right around $216 plus tax.  Ouch.  I just couldn’t bring myself to fork out that much for drapes.  However I did fall in love with another fabric that was also on sale, for a much slimmer price. 

It went perfectly with my color swatch for the living room, and I knew from the moment I laid eyes on it I had to have it.  Did I know what I was going to use it for? No.  Did I care? No.  One yard please!    

On the way home from the fabric store a lot of ideas were tossed around for the fabric, but nothing special.  At the least I was going to use them for throw pillows when we finally got our gray living room couch.  Then, as we were gathered in the living room (which still only has two chairs) and my mother-in-law was sitting on the floor she said “why don’t you do some floor pillows with that fabric”.  YES! I loved the idea!  It would add a huge punch and pattern to the room, and also function with added seating.  I had toyed around for a while with adding a bench under the big long window but thought it would be too cluttered.  Floor pillows will work perfectly because they aren’t as bulky and permanent as furniture but will definitely add some spunk!    

Where's Waldo?

This is the game I had been playing with my throw pillows on my couch for, oh around a month after the couch arrived.  The game should more accurately be titled: Where’s the throw pillows?  You see, I am in love with brown…dark rich chocolate brown!  So naturally after couch hunting for some time we decided on a big comfy brown sectional that would fit my 6’4 hubby and me perfectly.  Here is where the dilemma comes in – the throw pillows that came with the couch were awful!  They went immediately to the garage because I couldn’t stand them even being in my living room. But have no fear!  I happened to have four nice throw pillows that I had accumulated over the years that would go nicely with the couch. These pillows happened to be….you guessed it, dark rich chocolate brown! For several months we had a couch that looked like this:

Yes, you could barely tell we had pillows and it looked like a disaster. BUT being on a budget crunch I felt I had little options when it came to buying new, due to my thoroughly disappointing trip to Pier 1 Imports.  This trip ended in me finding some “eehhh these are ok” pillows for $40.00 a pop.  If you do the math that means to adequately pillow my couch it would run me $160.00.  After my slight heart attack I figured there must be some other way! That’s when I ran across a little tutorial similar to this one at From An Igloo that would be the answer I needed.  Ahh, it was so obvious the whole time! The solution to my dilemma was sewing me up some throw pillow covers.  And, since I am so close to an outlet fabric store I wasted no time getting my butt over there.  I wanted to buy upholstery fabric so it was thicker and more durable, but I fell in love with these outdoor fabrics.  As a general rule you can use any fabric for throw pillow covers so I didn’t let the fact that it was outdoor fabric stop me!

This fabric had just the deep blues and bright greens I had envisioned for my living room!  Plus, at $3.99 a yard on super clearance that meant this fabric was easy on my wallet too!  I chose to mix a smaller geometric patter with a larger floral patter to give the pillows some visual interest.  The fabrics complement each other because they have coordinating colors, but the different styles of patterns make them a funky pair. The total for the fabric was around $16.00 and it covered my four pillows with a little to spare.  The icing on the cake though, was that a week later I found this same fabric at JoAnn’s Fabrics for around $35.00 a yard – major victory for me!  After enlisting the free help of my mom to sew me up some covers this is what I got:

The back gaps a bit at times, making it look like a couple of mummy eyes, so it is an option to tack it closed with a couple of small stitches.  However if you pull the back seams together they look pretty good and will stay closed for awhile.  Otherwise, the tutorial by From An Igloo has a thicker seam on the back that helps prevent the backs from opening up as much.     

I was happy that the pillows coordinated with my floating shelves.  I can see my color scheme in the living room finally coming together.  So with the throw pillow situation figured out it is on to the next project: the blah coffee table!  Check back for an update on the coffee table re-do!