Christmas Pillows | 2-in-1

Finished our new Christmas pillows last night just in time to enjoy them for a couple of weeks before packing them away for next year, and wanted to share with you how they turned out and the story behind-the-scenes.

The photo below, was my original vision..... but we like the 'wrong' side, photo above, the best!  What's so neat here, is that if we get tired of one side, we can always turn them over and enjoy a totally different pillow 'look'.  2-in-1?!

It all began realizing we had nary a holiday pillow in our home.  Having made many pillows in the past, thought it'd be a cinch to run up a couple of fun seasonal pillows, and finding a bolt of red velvet panne in my hands at our local Wal-Mart for $3.97/yard, one yard was purchased.  Why one yard?  It seemed like a good idea at the time - thinking there'd be plenty of fabric for 2 @18"x18" pillows.  Well there would've been if I hadn't decided to include piping, as strips were cut off and piping sewn still thinking there'd be plenty of fabric.

These are pillow sleeves because I did not want to store 2 fully stuffed pillows for one whole year.  I began by making two muslin pillows filled with poly-fil stuffing, using my food scale to measure each muslin pillow to make sure each had equal 'stuffing'.  I want to use these in other pillow inserts I'll be making after Christmas.

As you've probably guessed by now, I ran out of fabric.  I ran out of fabric to such a degree that I didn't have enough of one piece to complete one of the backs, and that's why you see the red velvet panne pieced in the pillow below.  I really thought this pillow was going to turn out sooooooo bad - and was sooooo surprised it's our favorite!  The piecing looks like a decorative feature and the plaid criss-cross makes it feel like it's a present waiting to be opened.  Love it!  The plaid also turned out to be great at 'hiding' the opening for the insert.

Wracked my head with all sorts of ideas for the pillow closure from buttons, to velcro, to zipper and decided on a simple sleeve.

...and found out what happens when you do not overlap the fabric enough..... it gaps...

....because it needs @2 1/2" overlap. 

This pillow is perfect.

Let me add I washed and dried the red velvet panne in the washer and dryer before cutting anything out and it laundered beautifully and should be easy to clean in the future.  Not having worked with velvet panne before, I was surprised at how slippy-slidey it was and had a little trouble keeping it through my machine while stitching those narrow piping seams.  Also, once cut the edges would curl like crazy and it was hard to see a 'straight' edge.  These pillows are very 'forgiving' in those areas and ultimately, I am thrilled with our new 2-in-1 seasonal pillows.