Sunburst Pillow

Over a year ago, right when Pinterest first started, I found this Sunburst Pillow, and was inspired to make my own… one day! Back before Pinterest I would create a new blog post and save the link in the blog post. I know… that’s a bit crazy, so you can only imagine how many “draft” blog post I have sitting waiting for me to one day create the item! It’s my goal… one day they will all be completed!

Earlier this year (like New Years day early) when we were smack dab in the middle of planning out our Master Bedroom Revamp project I bought 180+ yards of fabric… aqua linen fabric that matched our comforter perfectly! The gorgeous and expensive fabric (although I will preface I had a gift card and a 50% off fabric coupon) sat for 6 months. I bought the fabric with the intentions of making curtains. Back in April/May I went to lay out the fabric and that’s when I realized I did not have enough fabric. We had bought every last yard of the fabric and at this point it was way too late to purchase any more fabric. I had a few options… Make it work by adding a strip of coordinating fabric to make the curtains long enough OR scrap making curtains all together. After a long and hard decision I decided to go with white Ikea grommet curtains, and I vowed I would make pillows out of the linen fabric *and maybe a dress if I ever get the courage to sew from a pattern!

I started and finished the pillows last month. After much debate I decided to go with an envelope fold pillow. Mr. Woodsy was against this (and partly sad that he even knows what an envelope style pillow is). He said it was my easy way out. I opted with this choice after attempting to sew a zipper in over a year and sewed all the pieces together. An hour and a half later of seam ripping and I had enough. I wanted these pillows complete. My Sunburst Pillow starts in one corner and moves out unlike my inspiration piece from Noodlehead on Versus. I have a very light tutorial compared to what Noodlehead provided. Feel free to read both and make a version of your own.

Supplies:

• Linen Fabric
• Scissors
• Yard Stick
• Chalk Pen
• Iron
• Ironing Board
• Sewing Machin
• Thread
• Thread Ripper
• Pillow Form

It all starts with cutting out the fabric and making your “sunburst” lines. I used 30 x 30 form pillows so I cut my fabric to be 36 by 36 to start with. Then I drew 7 lines using my chalk stick so I knew where I would want to stitch. Their was no method to my madness. I just drew lines. I know that each pillow is not perfectly spaced and matchy matchy… I’m ok with that.

Next up, grab that iron and make it work for you. I folded over the fabric to where one of the lines was, ironed it, and then sewed it.

I repeated this along the way until I had perfect lines on one side and the “hem” like lines on the other side.

And repeat… you’ll be tired of ironing by pillow number 2 or at least I was.

My sunburst pillow fronts sat for a few weeks until I had enough time and energy to devote to them. The night I decided to finish these pillows once and for all Mr. Woodsy decided to go “take a nap” at 7:45 at night. I decided that I was just gonna let the poor man sleep. He was exhausted. He woke up at 11:00 and found me finishing up my pillows.

Like I stated above, I decided to make an envelope style pillow for this set of the pillows. I cut out two 20″ pieces in which I hemmed one end. I put the hemmed side facing in and made sure the nasty raw edges were facing me. Remember, once you sew the pillow you will turn the pillow right side out.

I then pinned my three pieces together. I also like to pin the center area where the two pieces of fabric overlap.

Once everything is pinned it is time to sew around the perimeter of the pillow cover.

Once I finished sewing I decided to trim up the edges to make the inside raw material a bit nicer than what it was prior to the sewing. Place the pillow covers over pillow forms and your pillows are done. Altogether I think this took me about 5 hours. But I also move at a snails pace and that’s with the  added 1 hour of seam ripping out a zipper!

I’m very happy with how the pillows came out; although I must admit. I thought those humungo pillow 30 x 30 pillow forms would fill up the entire bed. I was shocked when I saw how “small” they looked on our bed.

What do you think of the pillows?

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