Inspired by Pottery Barn: pillow tutorial

The other day I was browsing through my mother's button box when I came across these beauties:

I'm betting they were from a coat back in the 1970's. Who knows? But they were nice, big wooden buttons, so I pulled them out and wondered what I could do with them. A few days later, I got my newest Pottery Barn catalog, and found wonderful pillows created with--you guessed it--buttons!

I just loved those pillows with all their buttony cuteness.  And the fabric from which they were made reminded me of canvas. You know, this kind:

Game on.

The dimensions of the Pottery Barn pillows are 16" x 26", so I cut two rectangles 18" x 28" from my dropcloth. (I always add one inch to each side of my fabric whenever I sew anything. My sewing skills are very elementary, and allowing that one inch seam allowance keeps things simple.)

To create the look of the front of the Pottery Barn pillow, I cut a third panel of fabric 25% shorter than the others, but I added a couple of extra inches to fold under, so that panel was 18" x 23". I folded one end under two inches and pressed it, creating a panel 18" x 21".

See the short panel on top of the long panel?

This panel I placed on top of one of the other panels and pinned it in place, then sewed a straight seam about 1 1/2 inches from the fold. This created one panel to be the front of my pillow. (Note: I am not a good seamstress, but I'm a darn good pinner. Click here to see a pretty shower curtain I made via careful pinning and dismal sewing.)

Once those two pieces were sewn together, I simply took my front and back panels, put them right sides together, and sewed straight seams down the sides. I left a good-sized gap in the bottom for stuffing the pillow. (Click here for a pillow-making tutorial.) Then I turned my pillow cover right side out and pressed it.

And then for the fun part: adding the buttons! I used a tape measure and placed four buttons evenly along the front of the pillow. I used a pencil to make dots on the fabric where the buttons would go. (I just poked the pencil tip right through the button's holes to mark the place).

See the pencil marks?

Now it's starting to look like the real thing!

When the pillow case was all finished, I stuffed an old bed pillow in it and closed up the gap at the bottom.

Voila! A brand-new Pottery-Barn-inspired pillow, all made of materials I had on hand!

What do you think?

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For other great projects inspired by Pottery Barn, check out the The Pottery Barn Challenge at The CSI Project. And for lots and lots of pillows, don't miss the The Pillow Challenge at The CSI Project. Those CSI girls really know how to round up great projects!