Felt Eyelet Pillow

Who’s ready for another pillow?!? I know I am! I am LOVING my sofa these days. Here she is:

Isn’t she sweet? Gee, I really like her.

So this whole thing started with me thinking I should make an envelope pillow because, you know, those are pretty simple. And then I thought about how I like felt because you don’t have to finish the edges. And THEN I thought what if I harnessed the powers of felt and the powers of envelope pillows to make a super awesome lace-edged envelope pillow? Which is totally what I did. Here’s how it went down:

One of the things that’s pretty cool about envelope pillows it that you only need one piece of fabric. To figure out what size piece of fabric you need, first determine the size of your pillow form. The short side of your piece of fabric will be one inch longer than your pillow form. For example, my pillow form was 16′ x 16′, so the short side of my fabric was 17′. To determine the long side, you’ll need a bit of math. (It’s easy, don’t worry!) Multiply the length of your pillow form by 2 and add 4. For my pillow, 16 x 2 + 4 = 36. So, my piece of felt was 17′ x 36′. For a 12′ pillow form, you would need a piece of felt 13′ (12+1) x 28′ (12 x 2 + 4). Phew. Hope that’s not too confusing. On to the fun stuff!

Next, I found an image of eyelet lace that I liked. I would recommend a fairly simple pattern without a lot of little holes. I enlarged it, printed it off, and cut it into a template. Using my new template, I traced the lace pattern on to the edge of my felt. This would probably be a really good time to use a washable fabric marker if you have one. I didn’t, so we just went with a ballpoint. After tracing the pattern, cut out the eyelet holes. You will need some good scissors with sharp tips. I used some like these.

After you have cut out your lace edge, pat yourself on the back because you are practically done!  Seriously! This is why envelope pillows are so great!

Lay your felt out and mark your fold lines. For my pillow, I marked 12 inches from my eyelet edge and 8 inches from the other edge.

If you are using a different size pillow form, you will need to determine where you want your fold lines. You will have the length of your pillow form plus four inches to work with. For example, if you have a 12 inch pillow form, you will have 16 inches to play with. If you folded your case 8 inches from each side, your lace edge would be in the center of the pillow.

Fold the case on the fold lines making sure the eyelet edge is on the inside of the case.

Now, simply turn your case right-side out, and stuff in your form.

(P.S. That yellow guy up there is something else I’ve been working on. Coming soon… )