Fabulous Friday -part one

At church, in the fall we usually have a big activity where all the ladies come and spend all day Saturday, crafting up a storm and getting a few ideas for the holidays.  It's usually called Super Saturday, but this year we did it on a Friday night and called it Fabulous Friday.  I got to help out and so I thought I'd share some of the projects we did and post a few tutorials that we worked up.

First up: the Poinsettia Pillow Cover.  The idea was to make a holiday slipcover for a pillow you already are using in your decor, so you only have to store the cover during the year and pull it out to dress up the pillow for the holidays.

Supplies for a 12 inch square pillow cover:

Base fabric (heavy weight) ~ 1/2 yard
Cream felt ~ 1/2 yard
Gold pearl embroidery thread ~ 3 yards
Gold jingle bells of various sizes (approx. 20)
Poinsettia leaves pattern (if you are really interested in making one yourself, let me know and I'll send you a file with the pattern.)
Pillow form or pillow to be covered
Sewing machine
Hand sewing needle

Instructions:

Using chalk trace poinsettia pattern on felt and cut out.  I like using sidewalk chalk because it's soft and covers quickly and easily on felt.

Measure pillow and add 1 inch to that measurement and that will give you the width of base material (side A in following diagram).   Double the measurement of the pillow and add 5 inches for the length of the base material (side B in following diagram).

Serge, overlock, or zigzag stitch the edges of the base material.
Make a finished hem on one of the ‘side A”s.

Fold material in half and mark the center of side B. Measure ½ the width of the pillow in each direction from the center and mark it. These marks (shown by arrows in the diagram below) delineate the front of the pillow cover.

Starting with the largest felt piece, centered on the front of the pillow cover, stack all the poinsettia pieces and pin in place.

Using doubled gold thread, and starting about a 1 ½ inches from the point of the leaf, hand stitch down the center line of each poinsettia leaf. You may scrunch or pucker the felt as you go to give the leaves more dimension.

Stitch jingle bells in the center of the poinsettia. Intermingle the different sizes.

Pin the longest poinsettia leaves toward the center of the pillow so they do not get caught in the seams during the next step.

With right sides together, and using the marks showing the front of the cover, first fold the hemmed edge then plain overlocked edge as shown below. Pin in place and straight stitch along both edges.

Turn pillow case right side out and unpin the poinsettia leaves.

Stuff pillow or pillow form into the pillow case and you are done.

These pillow covers are so ridiculously quick and easy to make, that I covered the four pillows for the back of my love seat in less than an hour!  Okay, I didn't put poinsettias on those covers since they are for everyday, but as easy as they were, I might be changing them out for new ones everyday!