Elephants and Pom Poms

Last week I was happily reading some blogs when I found out that my favorite challenge of all is back!  It’s time for another round of the Pinterest Challenge!  This round the four hosts of the challenge are Young House Love, Bower Power, The Remodeled Life, and Decor and the Dog.  The basic premise is that you stop pinning and start making.  My projects from past challenges include a bow dress, a skinny tie diy, and a lace cowl made from curtains.  Well, this particular challenge was just the kick in the booty that this girl needed.

See, I’ve been hoarding this elephant tea towel for a YEAR planning on making it into a pillow.  (You might have seen it hanging crookedly on the oven in my last kitchen post.)  It was time.  I was inspired by this pin to add some pom poms.

The lovely lady who originally came up with this project is Susan from Living With Punks.  Be sure and check out her tutorial here.  I made a couple of changes to my pillow, so I’ll share my process with you.

Here’s a little sneak peek of how it turned out!

First of all, I used a pom pom maker for my poms.  My mom bought me one for Christmas, and I’ve been so excited to use it!  I used to make pom poms by hand like Susan does in the original tutorial, and I’ve tried making them by cutting out my own cardboard template.  Let me just say, go for the pom pom maker.  It will change your life.  I used nearly an entire skein of Red Heart yarn and made 10 gigantic pom poms.

I then cut my fabric and laid out the poms.  My pillow form was 17.5 inches, so I cut an 18.5 inch square out of my fabric to give me lots of wiggle room.  I like wiggle room.  Then I laid my poms out to see how many I wanted.  I originally made enough for three on each side, so I had to take a break and watch an episode of Property Brothers to make more poms.  It’s a hard life.

I placed some pins where the poms needed to be placed, making sure they were evenly spaced.

Sewing time! It feels awkward, but make sure you sew the pom onto the fabric in this direction, with the pom resting on the right side of the fabric.  I sewed back and forth over the pom approximately 25.8 times to make sure it was secure.  I take care of some little boys who love to wrestle with my pillows, so I didn’t want to worry about the poms coming out.

I made an envelope closure for the back of the pillow.  For this pillow I cut one piece of fabric 18.5 inches by 8 inches, and the other 18.5 by 14.  Then you hem both pieces on one of the 18.5 inch sides by folding it over 1/2 an inch twice and then sewing along the bottom of the fold.  Looking back, I would cut each piece a couple of inches taller, and I would have chosen a different fabric that didn’t have any stretch in it

Now it is time to pin the backing to the pillow!  Make sure the right sides of each are together, and then pin like crazy.  I pinned the shorter piece of the backing envelope on first and then pinned the longer piece on top of it.  The easiest method I could find for pinning was to match up a corner of each fabric and pin it, then pin every couple of inches.  I pinned deep enough that I wouldn’t worry about accidentally sewing the pom to the fabric.

I sewed the pillow together with the backing on top first, and then took all 4500 pins out and flipped the pillow over.  See in the top right picture how the original seam is to the right of the point where the pom is attached?  You want it to be on the left, or on the side closest to the pillow itself.  So just make a new seam.  It’s a lot easier to fix this problem after you’ve already sewed the pillow together.

Turn the pillow right side out and insert the pillow form.  Mine turned out a bit droopy on the back side.  I think it’s because the fabric was stretchy, so it scooted around a lot during the pinning process.  Maybe if I had cut the fabric taller it would have fixed this issue?  Regardless, it’s an easy fix.  I just pulled the fabric together and slip stitched the opening closed.  It will be really easy to clip the stitches when I want to switch out the pillow cover.

You ready to see the finished product?

Ta-da!  Even with all of its errors, I love this little guy.  I’m so happy with the way it turned out!

I also made the other two pillows you see here.  Stay tuned for the tutorial on those!  (Warning – they’re much easier and quicker than this pom pillow.  Ha!)

The back of the pillow turned out pretty cute!  If you look closely you can see that I stitched it together, but hopefully the pom poms will distract anyone from looking too closely.  Hmm, if only I could put them on all my sewing.

As you can tell, I’m still trying to decide which throw I like best.  I’ll probably keep switching them out, much to Timothy’s enjoyment.

Today I’m linking up with the hosts of the Pinterest Challenge: Young House Love, Bower Power, The Remodeled Life, and Decor and the Dog.  Be sure and stop by those great blogs today to see all the fun projects that people are working on!

This elephant pom pom pillow was my first pillow.  Have any of you out there made your own pillows?  Do you usually like to go for subdued pillows or patterned ones?  My dream is to one day make so many pillow covers that I can rotate them as often as I like.  I dream high, you know.  Ha!

~Whitney