One of my projects on the "To Do Before Baby Comes" list was to cover two naked euro pillows my mom gave us after she bought a new bedding set. My little guy loves to make a "bed" out of them and watch Sesame Street. I'm dealing with a bit of downtime while waiting for info from a client, so I finally got the chance to bust out these two canvas pillow covers.
If I didn't have a toddler under foot so many of my waking hours I probably could have gotten this done within a couple hours, including paint dry time. The actual sewing is little more than simple straight lines.
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| The original drop cloth had a great seam running through the middle so I made the most of it and used it in the designs, running it vertically in the middle of each pillow. |
After purchasing a canvas drop cloth from Lowes, I ran it through the wash & dry to soften it and pre-shrink it. After cutting out the pieces for the main pillow covers (with a simple tucking fabric closure in the back), I used scrap material for the appliques. For one pillow I cut a band of material, pinned it to my table, and painted it a tomato red. I kept a relatively dry brush to pick up the texture of the material and look like I wasn't trying too hard to be perfect. Once it was dry I stenciled our name in a off white color onto the red. I quickly ran a stitch along each long edge to attach the painted piece to a front panel leaving 1/4" between the stitch and the edge of the red piece.
For the second pillow I did the same sort of painting technique on a block of fabric and cut star out from it once it was dry. I also cut out a smaller star that would fit within the red one. I stitched the red star onto one front panel, leaving 1/4" between the stitch and the edge of the star. Then I stitched on the natural canvas star leaving the same 1/4" between the stitch and the edge.
For both pillows I sewed the front panels to the back pieces, overlapping them about six inches to give a nice tuck and coverage. I'm far too lazy to make button holes or sew buttons, so this is my favorite way of covering a pillow. Then I ran them both through the wash on a hot cycle, and dried them normally. The wash/dry totally softened the paint perfectly. After some serious fray trimming I'm super excited with how cute they turned out. My little guy loves his new "bed" pillows and I'm glad I have kid-proof washable one-of-a-kind pillow covers.
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| What 2yr old wouldn't want these big pillows? |
