Finished project: another felt pillow cover for Christmas

I had already completed two felt pillow covers earlier this year except for this one. It took a little while longer as I had to do the little holes in the centre by hand.

I made this the same way that I made the other two covers. Festive, eh?

The Snowflake Pillows

This post is a little late but that's alright. I bought some die-cut felt snowflakes from Michael's Boxing Day Sale this past year and I knew exactly what I was going to do with them.

For this project, I used 1 package of felt fabric from Micheal's (it measures 36 by 36 inches), 2 die-cut felt snowflakes*, matching red and white thread, a sewing machine, a seam ripper, a measuring tape, a fabric marker, pins and a needle for hand sewing. 

*Note that these snowflakes came already cut. If you want to do this yourself, I am sure that you can find a snowflake design on the internet, print it, cut it out then use it as a template over felt. It can be pinned to the fabric then cut out using a craft knife over a self-healing mat.

To start, I measured a pillow with measuring tape to get the height and width. I folded the felt over lengthwise and smoothed it out so that the edges touched and I would get a clean line. I added 1 cm of seam allowance on both sides and cut the felt up the middle to create two pillow covers that measured 18 by 18 cm.

Pillow #1:

I pinned the snowflake to the center of the pillow on the first layer and pinned it down on all six sides so that it wouldn't move. Then, I sewed the snowflake to the top layer of the red felt pillow cover. This was painstakingly long but completely worth it to achieve a quilted look.

To move around the corners and curves, I would move the fabric quickly or stop sewing with the needle in the fabric, move the fabric, then continue sewing.

Pillow #2:

For this pillow, I cut the snowflake into three pieces for the corners after doing some measurements.

I pinned the main corners of these snowflakes to one layer of the red felt in these positions. Then, I sewed each snowflake to the felt pillow. Again, this was very long, arduous work but it's completely worth it to see this pillow.

For both pillow #1 and #2, once the snowflake was sewn on, I pinned down two of the cut sides and most of the third with a gap for stuffing (as I folded the felt over, I only had three cut edges instead of four). I sewed it all down so that I was left with a pillow cover with a hole for stuffing.

I took an old pillow, cut it open and reused the stuffing for this pillow.

I pinned the open seam then hand-stitched the hole with matching thread and a needle. 

And here is the finished product!

Estimated time for this project: about 3-4 hours. It took a long time to quilt the snowflakes on each pillow but the actual work of cutting, filling and such didn't take long. it's all worth it for a great result.

Notes:

• I was seriously considering dying both of these fabrics before sewing. I was going to dye the red felt burgundy and the snowflakes cream to match my usual Christmas decor colors. The red is a little bright for me but I am sure that I will find a home for it. 

Ideas:

•  Any color combination would work! I did red and white but it's not limited to that.