Holly Berry Pillow Tutorial

Holly Berry Felt Pillow DIY-5051

I loved the Felt Christmas Tree Pillow I sewed last year for BERNINA and thought it would be fun to make a companion pillow. So I’ve designed a Felt Holly Berry Pillow to share with you. With felted wool pom poms again. I can’t get enough of those pom poms! I love the handmade look accomplished with the magic #6 triple stitch on the BERNINA 580 and a bit of hand sewing on the pom poms. You can easily make this pillow in the afternoon and have a cute holiday touch for your couch or a great handmade gift to share.

Materials to make a Holly Berry Pillow

  • Download the Holly Berry Pillow Template
  • 1/2 yard high quality felt in red (I used a mostly wool felt)
  • 1/4 yard high quality felt in green, or a scrap large enough for cutting 6 holly leaves
  • 6 felted wool pom poms in reds, pinks and oranges
  • Coordinating thread for sewing and hand stitching
  • Hand sewing needle
  • Stuffing to fill an 16 inch pillow
  • Your sewing machine. I sew on a BERNINA 580

How to sew the Holly Berry Pillow

Step 1: Prepare and Cut Out Your Pattern

Download the Holly Berries Template file and print it at 100% (no scaling). Cut out one of the leaves for a pattern and keep the rest of the page to use as a placement guide.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4916

Cut 6 holly leaves from your green felt.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4922

Cut out two 16 inch squares from your red felt, one for the pillow front and one for the pillow back. Be sure to get a really clean, straight cut as there will be no hemming.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4909

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4914

Step 2: Stitch on the Holly Leaf Appliques

On the right side of one of your red felt squares, determine placement of your holly leaves using the pattern PDF file you downloaded and this image as a reference.

Holly Berries Placement
Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4915

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4925

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4928

Pin your leaves in place.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4930

Now using a thread of your choice (I used a slightly lighter, brighter green) set your machine to the triple stitch (#6 on my BERNINA 580) and set your stitch length to 5.0mm. Start at the stem end of one of the leaves and top stitch carefully around the holly leaf. I found it helpful to count the 1-2-3 of the triple stitch so that I could pivot at the right time and keep those triple stitches neatly stacked on top of each other.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4933

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4938

Repeat with the remaining five holly leaves.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4947

Your pillow front should look like this:

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4951

 

Step 3: Handstitch the Pom Poms

Arrange the pom poms on the pillow front to your liking, using the illustration above as a guide.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4955

Use extra large safety pins to secure the pom poms from the backside of your pillow front.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4956

Thread a hand sewing needle with a doubled length of thread, double and knot at the end so you can stitch with four strands. Bring the needle up from the back side of your pillow front in the center of a pom pom.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4958

Push the needle back down through the pillow front catching the underside of the pom pom, making a short diagonal stitch like one leg of an “X.”

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4960

Now bring the needle from the underside up through the center of the pom pom again and insert the needle down the side of the pom pom, catching the underside, to creating a stitch at a right angle with your first. Make two more stitches like this until you have stitched an “X” over your pom pom.

Felt Holly Berry Pillow Pom Poms-4963

Repeat until you have secured all your pom poms this way.

Holly Berry Felt Pillow DIY-4965

Step 4: Stitch the Pillow Together and Finish

Lay the pillow front on top of the pillow back, wrong sides together and pin.

Holly Berry Felt Pillow DIY-4967

Using the #6 stitch on your BERNINA sewing machine, with a stitch length of 5.omm, stitch around the edge of the pillow on all sizes using a .5 inch seam allowance. Leave a 3 inch opening along the bottom for stuffing the pillow.

Holly Berry Felt Pillow DIY-4971

Stuff the pillow and stitch the opening closed. This will take a bit of wrangling. I recommend using your zipper foot to maintain the .5″ seam allowance along the bottom without having to wedge the pillow under your presser foot.

Holly Berry Felt Pillow DIY-4980

Now your pillow is ready to gift or enjoy!

Holly Berry Felt Pillow DIY-5012

 

Our December 20 Gift for You:

Today’s gift is a BERNINA oil pen.

All you have to do is post a comment below answering the following question:

What kind of home decorating project tutorials would you like to see at WeAllSew?

A winner will be chosen at random on December 21, 2016 and announced the following week!

Good luck!

The contest is open for comments until December 20 at 12:00 midnight Central Time. Click here for contest rules.

Congratulations to WeAllSew reader “sewtired,” the winner of our December 20th gift. Enjoy!

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