make: chevron throw pillow cover

After my sewing debacle earlier this week, I decided it was time to repair and finish the Chevron Stripe pillow.  Boy am I glad I did, I love this bad boy.

As I mentioned on Monday, the original back to this pillow was supposed to be black, white and grey striped but as you can see in the picture above, I failed to calculate and measure properly and ended up with a back that was 2 inches too short.  Of course, I figured this out after I had already sewn in the invisible zipper.  I knew I didn’t want to go back and have to start over, so I decided to repair it with a quick and easy fix.  I simply measured the black section of the first back and cut it four inches from the zipper.

I then cut another piece of black fabric 4 x 20 to be the bookend on other side.  Then I measured and cut the center panel so that it was 13 x 20.  This gave me 1/4 inch seam allotments to sew the center panel to the left and the right to the center resulting in a 20 x 20 back.  If you measure correctly the first time, you won’t need to do this.  I recommend that you simply cut a 20 x 20 piece to start with and skip this whole headache.  But if you do happen to screw up like I did, realize for the most part there are ways to save a project.

If done properly, pillow covers are a cinch to make.  Start with two matching sizes panels, my pillow form was 20×20 so that’s the size of the panels I used.  Sew the invisible zipper along one of the sides.  For more on how to do this, see this post here.

Then once the zipper is in, pin the panels right sides together along the remaining three raw edges.  Make sure that your zipper is open at this point.

Sew using a 1/4 seam allotment.  Trim the excess fabric and turn the pillow right side out.  Insert form and there you go.  Houston, we have a pillow.

To learn how to make your own chevron stripe fabric, check out our tutorials here and here.

Let us know if you make these, we’d love to see your new pillows.  Enjoy the weekend!

xoxo

Katie