Re-Covered Pillows

A friend of mine had some old pillows from an old couch and she had some great outdoor fabric and asked if I could combine the two to make something beautiful.

I think I was successful. 

The pillows started out like this.  You can see that there are four from a couch and two others that she had hanging around.  

I started with the couch pillows, sliced open the fabric and groaned, already dreading where I was going to go from her since inside I didn't find a pillow form but a messy semi square of old batting.

I knew I'd need to first cover the batting so I got some broadcloth.  I made a large rectangle (the size of the pillow only twice as long), folded it in half and sewed up the two sides.  I flipped the now square fabric inside out, inserted the batting and sewed the third side shut.  To prevent fraying I used my pinking shears on the one exposed seam and called them good.  

These covers were crazy quick and made a huge difference when inserting into the final pillow cover.


Next up was the piping.  Let me tell you something, I HATE making piping.  I really wanted to just buy some but I couldn't find any pre-made that matched and I did need 12 meters.  I found some green fabric that matched perfectly and was really cheap, I used 1/2 a meter and had a little left.  While I love the way the piping turned out it was easily the worst part of this project, took longer than I wanted and I was annoyed the entire time.


Once I made the piping I made covers using the new fabric, I hand stitched the opening closed and ended up with some really great looking pillows.  I took a lot of care joining my piping and I was really pleased with how it turned out, I think it's the best I've done.  Look at that beautiful join.

One last after photo, a huge improvement and they'll look great on her patio furniture.