Sewing a Decorative Pillow for Beginners

Learning to sew is a dying art. Sewing was once an essential skill to our fore mothers. It was necessary for women to be able to sew garments and bedding for their families and to mend any rips or tears. Stores at one time carried very few ready made clothing and that was in limited sizes and styles. Young girls would first learn to sew doing basic projects such as pillows, aprons, and samplers. And sewing a decorative pillow is a great beginners sewing project.

To start your craft project you will need: ¼ yard of 100% cotton material, thread, poly-fill stuffing, sewing machine, pencil, ruler, and large sheet of paper.

Before you get started sewing you need to get acquainted with your sewing machine. Follow the instructions in your machine's owner's manual wind the bobbin with your thread. Now thread your machine. Next get a piece of scrap material to practice sewing. Get yourself familiar with straight stitching and back stitching. Once you have practice sewing to the point you feel pretty comfortable with your sewing machine, you can buy your material for your pillow.

For beginning sewers I recommend using 100% cotton broad fabric. Since cotton is popular to work with it comes in a large variety of colors and patterns. You will need to purchase ¼ of a yard of fabric for this project. After you have purchased your fabric you will need to wash it before using. Washing the fabric pre-shrinks the fabric and removes any sizing or chemicals it the fabric. Now you will want to iron the fabric and cut away any loose threads, smooth fabric is a lot easier to work with so don't skip this step.

Now for our pattern to keep things simple I suggest making your own. Take the large sheet of paper and draw a 12"X12" square and cut it out, now you have your pattern. See that was easy. Now fold the fabric into half and pin on the pattern use plenty of pins to secure the pattern. Next cut the fabric around your pillow pattern. After cutting out your pillow pattern it is time to sew.

First remove the pins and pattern leaving only the fabric. Now take the fabric pieces apart and pin them together with right (printed) sides facing each other. Be sure to leave a four inch opening on one end. Now place the fabric onto the sewing machine with your starting point at one end of the opening. Back stitch to lock the seam then straight stitch the fabric leaving a 5/8" seam allowance. When you reach the corner lifted the pressure foot and turn the fabric 90*, lower the pressure foot and continue sew. Repeat until you reach the opening now back stitch, remove the pillow, and cut away the threads.

Now you need to trim the seam allowances at the corners to approximately ¼ ". Next turn the pillow right side out; you may need to use a pencil (erase end) to push out the corners. Here comes the fun part stuffing. Tear off handfuls of the poly-fill and stuff your pillow until it is nice and firm. And now to finish off your pillow, hand stitch the opening closed.

Look you've done it! You have completed your first sewing project. And you have a beautiful new pillow to enjoy.