Patchwork Pillows

Paul has been asking me for some new cushions for our bed for a while. I really loved the colours and effect of the simple patchwork quilt, so thought I would make some to match. Cue a long search on line to try and find the same jelly roll that I had used for the quilt, which I had bought a year ago in a shop currently shut due to the lockdown. I even went through my bin to dig out the cut-off ends of the fabric to find out what make it was – result!

Benartex / Kanvas Studios – not easy to find in the UK from the looks of it, but I found loads on eBay. I got so tempted in my search and the success of finding the same jelly roll (or ‘strip pie as it doesn’t come in a roll) that I ended up buying 3 packs!! With a multi-buy discount it would have been rude not to!! The seller was Carogojo on eBay, and I would recommend them. They applied an additional postage discount to what eBay had applied and refunded me on Paypal, AND shipped straight away. Ordered Thursday, arrived Saturday morning – great service!

Aren’t they gorgeous? The dragonfly ones are the same range of fabric as the ‘new’ fabric In our Bollin Morris tatter jackets, and this is almost a ready made tatter kit (not quite the right colours for us though).

Not only did I need to do patchwork pillow cases / cushion covers, but also had to make the pillow/cushions. These are for sitting up in bed. We decided on a bolster, and discussed a diameter of around 12-14″. This is where basic maths really does get used in real life 🙂 I needed to work out what size bolster I could cover with the patchwork strips I had.

If I went with 14″ diameter, that gave a 44″ circumference – so 5 and a bit 8″ squares. 12″ diameter would be 38″ circumference, so to work with the patchwork squares being 8″ I went with a 40″ circumference (5 x 8″ squares), and therefore a diameter of 12.7″ (plus 0.5″ seam allowance all round).

Length of a normal pillow is about 26″, so I went for 24″ for these – 3 x 8″ squares.

Next check was that there would be enough patchwork for the ends. So far, for the cylinder bit I am using 5 x 3 squares for each one, so 30 squares for two. leaving another 20 squares to make the end circles, and think about an opening to get the bolsters in. I had worked out I could make the circles, but was still mulling over how to overlap the ends to get the bolster in…

Then I remembered we had some small bolster type pillows from years ago. I dug them out and saw that the covers on those were basically just cylinders with drawstrings in the end. Happy days – all I needed to do, was make the cylinders longer. So each bolster cover is 5 x 5 x 8″ squares – using up all 50 I can get out of the pack of fabric – perfect.

I made the bolster pillows themselves first, from some cotton fabric I had knocking around, that I think Mum gave me when she had a clear out. A rectangle of fabric 25″ x 41″, and two circles with radius of 6.8″. I cut myself a little paper quarter circle to cut around for these. These came together relatively easily, and were stuffed with the filling of a double duvet on offer in Lidl!!

Usual pretty pictures of strips of fabric becoming squares 😉

Trying to arrange into strips of 4 to sew together to start.

Lying in bed last night I was trying to think of what distance I have sewn creating these – more maths (must be the home-schooling rubbing off on me – actually I haven’t had to help them really, I just love numbers).

Maybe I should go metric at some point, but this works in imperial better!!! Each strip of 4 has 3 seams 44″ long = 132″, and there are then 10 of these = 1320″.

The 10 strips then each get cut into 5 8.5″ squares (0.25″ seam allowance around).

These are then sewn into strips of 5 (4 seams 8.5″ each = 34″), 10 strips = 340″

5 of the strips are sewn together for each bolster (4 seams 40.5″ each = 162″), two bolsters = 384″.

Seam to make 5 strips into a cylinder = 40.5″, for two = 81″.

Hem / catchment for drawstrings on both ends of both, plus a small seam to mark the end of each cylinder part, before gathering at the end = 2 x 4 x 40″ = 320″

Drawstrings – 4, each ~48″ long (192″). These were made from leftover bits of sheet used for the quilt backing. 2″ wide strips. I actually used my bias binding making kit to fold this over to make a drawstring, and then topstitched down the edge.