The Heart Pillow

Let me start this by saying if it was up to me this pillow would have never happened. While figuring out our next craft day, I showed Katie this heart pillow tutorial I had pinned forever ago. After reading it, I said it was too advanced but Katie said we were going to do it. Well folks, she has greater confidence in our sewing ability than I do but thank goodness she did or 3 of us wouldn't have fabulous heart pillows!

I won't lie to you... it was quite a challenge while making it but now I think it would be easier to do a second time. But I'm not making another one anytime soon :)

Great addition to our kivik

We followed the tutorial by Noodlehead but I wanted to provide some tips and lessons learned:

• I didn't want a 20x20 pillow so I sized down the template for a 17x17 pillow (use photoshop or a copier) and made my own pillow form using muslin and polyfill - cheap and pretty quick 

• Feel free to go outside of the traditional look if you want. Katie did her heart in purple and background fabric in gray.

• Don't be confused when the two templates you cut out don't fit inside each other. They won't and somehow by accounting for seam allowance and how its sewn together, it will just work, trust me. Maybe someone more advanced can explain how this really works out. Also double check what you are doing before you cut your templates because it's not entirely clear.

• The hardest part the only really hard part is the two times you sew a red heart half to a front background half. You can't pin the pieces which was super hard for my always pin-happy self. Go pretty slow so you can guide the curves easier.

• When you don't make it all the way to the end of the background fabric curve on one or both heart halves you can adjust and line it all up when you do the middle heart seam... that is why it's important to leave a little extra fabric on the top, bottom, and outer edge (side away from the curve you are sewing on) on your two background cut outs.

• If you are worried about your heart halves not lining up perfectly when you sew them together just be prepared because it will happen. It happened to all 3 of us doing this project and even happened another time when one redid theirs but it did make it better. Mine only ended up being barely off at the bottom (lots of pinning helped!). A background fabric with some pattern to it like mine will help... it is more noticeable on a solid background. Also being off at the bottom of the heart is less noticeable than being off at the top.

• I didn't line my front background fabric like she did because it didn't really need it... unless you were using a thin white fabric, then line it.

• If you are more comfortable using an envelope closure for the back or don't feel like buying a zipper you can do that instead. For my 17x17 finished pillow I cut both pieces 11x18 to account for seam allowance. You want to make sure you have at least 3 inches of overlap and I accounted for 4 due to my pillow being a little more fully stuffed. 

I really heart this pillow (ha!) even more in person than when I looked at the pictures in the tutorial.

We decided it would be fun to do other seasonal pillow covers to swap out for this pillow so perhaps that will be a future craft day!

Have you attempted a rather challenging sewing project or craft lately? I am so happy we did and my pillow is living proof! (And yes as you can see below I am having tons of fun experimenting shooting in manual!)

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