I love decorating for Valentine’s day and I’ve had red hearts on my mind a lot lately.  When I was shopping for fabric the other day I came across this fun little polka-dot fabric.  I didn’t really NEED the fabric but right away my mind started racing as I thought of all the fun projects I could use it for.  It didn’t take much time for me to talk myself into making a new pillow for my living room.  Then since I was in the pillow making zone I was inspired to make the second LOVE pillow with supplies I already had on hand.

Eeek!  Just look at that supper cute mini rick rack.  Oh and I love the fuzzy felt letters and hearts.  The textures on these pillows are so much fun!

I made these pillows with envelope covers so I can easily remove them and replace them with covers for the next season or holiday.

These pillows are simple to construct and are the perfect sewing project for a beginner.  So let’s get started!

You will need:

• Fabric for you cover (could be light weight quilters cotton or drapery fabric)
• Felt
• Small rickrack
• Thread to match
• Heat N’ Bond Ultrabond (for the LOVE pillow)

The first step is to measure your pillow.  Then for the front of your cover you will add 1″ to the pillow length and 1″ to the pillow width.  For example, my pillow was 16″x16″ so by adding 1″ to each measurement my front piece was 17″x17″.

For the back of the cover you will need two pieces.  The length of each piece will be the length of your pillow plus 1″.  For the width of each piece you will divide the width of you pillow by 2 then add 3″.  So for my 16″x16″ pillow I had two pieces for my back cover measuring 17″x11″.

For each of your back pieces take one of the length sides (17″ side for my pillow) and fold it under 1/4″.  Press along the fold with an iron.

Then fold under again 1″ and press with an iron.

Sew the length of your two back pieces near your first fold.

Print, trace or draw a heart shape on a piece of paper to use as a pattern to cut out your felt hearts.  I stapled my heart pattern to my felt.  As opposed to sewing pins, staples keep everything nice and flat.

Lay out your hearts and rickrack on your cover front.  I like to drape the fabric over the pillow to get a better feel for how it will look.

Once you are happy with the arrangement pin the hearts and tape the rickrack to the cover front.  The rickrack I used was so narrow it would have been nearly impossible to pin it down nice and flat.  Be sure to use scotch tape or something that will not leave a residue on your fabric.

Stitch down the center of the rickrack (stitch right over the tape too) and the center of each heart.  Because the hearts are made of felt you do not need to worry about them raveling.  I chose not to stitch around the edge of the hearts because I like the loose, 3D appearance.

Now lay the front of your cover down with the right side facing up.  Then lay the two back pieces down the the right sides facing down.  The back pieces will overlap in the middle.

To help eliminate dog ears (pointy corners) you will need to trim off some fabric.  Measure 1/2″ in from the corner and make a dot.  Then go 3″-4″ down each side from the corner and make a dot.  Connect the dots to create two lines to cut on.  Repeat the process for each corner.

Pin your pieces and stitch a 1/2″ seam all around the outside edge.

To help eliminate bulk in the corners trim a little bit off each corner.  Be careful not to cut too close to your seam!

Now zig zag all around the outside edge to keep the fabric from raveling too much when you wash the cover.

Finally, turn your cover inside out and insert your pillow!