From Towels to Pillows Tutorial

Hey everyone!  I hope you have recovered from all of the 4th of July festivities.  I wanted to show you a quick little tutorial on how to make kitchen towels into pillows.  This is a super easy way to add a little something different to your decor for minimal cost.

We have these super cute Bait and Tackle Kitchen Towels.  They come packaged in this little envelope.  You get 4 to a set.  Don't you love the vintage look of these?  To me, they are too cute to be folded up and just hung over the handle on the fridge, they were begging to be made into something else...

 Let's get started!!!  


Supplies
1 pack of Bait and Tackle Kitchen Towels
1 1/2 yards of Countdown to Christmas--Frost Rudolph
3 yards of Pellon Fusible Fleece
2 bags of Polyester FiberFill

Cut your backing fabric and fusible batting so it is 1 inch larger than your towel.  I have noticed the towels aren't all the exact same measurement.  So you will just have to measure each to get the exact measurement.  I wound up cutting my 19" x 26". You will need 4 pieces of the backing fabric and 8 pieces of the fleece.

Fuse your fleece to the back side of the towel and your backing fabric.  Take your time and make sure you get a good bond.   

Quilt the towel however you like.  I chose to go very simple with my quilting.  Just outlining certain parts of the design that I wanted to stand out.

A close up of the quilting that I did.

Pin the towel and backing fabric together with right sides facing each other.  Leave a 6" opening at the bottom to allow you to stuff the pillow.  I always like to pin my openings with different color pins because I have a tendency to think about other things while I am sewing and forget what I am doing :o) 

**See that cutie pie of a pin cushion? You can find it here.

Sew the 2 pieces together.  I used a 1/8" seam.  When you have sewn them together, trim your excess fabric and cut your corners at an angle.  

Turn your pillow right side out.

Here it is turned right side out.  You will want to press your seams.  

I love how pretty and clean this is coming out.  

How you finish this up is completely up to you.  I wanted an "edge" on my pillow so I pinned around the red square on both sides.  Then sewed along the inside and outside of the square.  **Remember to keep your opening for stuffing.  You can see where I have pinned my starting and ending points.

A close up of how I stitched around the edge of the red square.

Start stuffing your pillow.  At this point, I stopped what I was doing and went and checked out our complete line of Kitchen Towels.  I called Karen and told her that I wanted one of each set.  I have visions of having a set for each holiday and any special occasion.  

Sorry, I was sidetracked there...I started by stuffing my corners first then filling in the middle.  As your pillow becomes fuller, make sure you aren't getting lumps.  You just have to work with the stuffing and smooth as you go.

Fully stuffed!  How stinking cute is that?

Now you want to stitch closed your opening.  I started by pinning on either side of the red line then stitching it together. I am sorry I didn't get a pic of that step, but you can see my stitching here.  Now, pin the bottom part of the open and stitch it closed.  I just used my machine and did a top stitch very close to the edge.

Here it is ready to be loved and enjoyed!

On a side note.  If you are looking for a craft that your husband will like this is it.  My manly man husband is not into my sewing at all.  When I was taking pictures, he came out and looked at what I had made.  He grabbed up one and said, "OK, these are really neat."  In my world, that is like winning a Grammy.  Hehe,  I hope you all have a GREAT day!