Pleated Pillow Covers

My living room is finally coming along! New rug, new flowers, new chairs, just redid the curtains, changing out pillows…its taken a steady two months of change, but its getting there J

I found a beautiful light gold pillow the other day….definitely never thought I would put gold in my house….but, I fell in love with it. So I had to get it! The only catch? There was only one left! But of course they would sell out when they were priced at $3 each. Oh well. Once I brought it home, I absolutely adored how it looked in the living room! It was perfect! Just the right amount of a different pop of color that it needed. I only wished I had more than one! Ugh.

Well, that got my creative process going. As you all know, I’m a sucker for pillows….cheap, ugly clearance pillows. And I have a whole slew of them in my ‘pillow’ closet just waiting to get madeover. So, I got some more gold fabric from the store…hoping it would be the gold I needed (got home…it wasn’t…but that’s beside the point….cuz I still love them J  They are just a tidbit darker than I would have preferred) and went to work on making some pillow covers for some ugly clearance pillows. But I wanted to add a little pizzazz to the pillows this time. I had enough plain covers already in my living room…. I already had some pillows with puckers too. So this is what I came up with to be a little different J

First I cut the yard of fabric in half. Half a yard usually fits a standard throw pillow. Then I eyed what would be the front ‘panel’ and started pinning.

I pinned five sections about a half inch to an inch apart from each other. I started from the middle line and pinned one way on one side, and the opposite way on the other.

I then did the other side and the middle.

Once all was said and done….it was a plethora of pins!

I made sure the outside pins were kept close to the edge so I wouldn’t have to undo them as I was sewing the edge down.

Which was the next step. Sew one edge of the pleats, then the other edge. Now you can lose the pins J

I kept the middle pins in just for good measure to keep the pleats in place as I finished sewing the rest of the cover.

Now with the pleats sewn in place….I used my Sew Easy Pillow Cover technique to make the cover. Just sewed the two shorter ends (which I did as my very first step by the way), ‘tri’ folded the fabric inside out to where the two shorter ends just barely meet and sewed together the pleated front to the back on both unfinished edges. Did that make since at all???? If not, check out the tutorial here.

And finally…after about three or four hours…which included dinner and watching parts of a football game in-between. They were finally finished!

The folds are perfect at the seam! I didn't want a too hard look so I fluffed up the folds a little bit in the middle to make it more casual.

It adds the perfect texture into the space J

And for your enjoyment::::::::::::::::::::::::

(actually its really just for my enjoymentJ ) Isn't he cute?!

This is what I deal with in most of my pictures....he's in like every other one. lol.

and he's also the cause of all the hair you may or may not see in all the pictures posted on this blog J

Linking up to:
http://www.justagirlblog.com/
http://www.findingfabulousblog.com/
http://romantichome.blogspot.com/
http://www.remodelaholic.com/
http://todayscreativeblog.net/