Corduroy Pillows with Piping and Zipper

Who wants to look at boring custom-made black corduroy pillows, complete with piping and zipper.... when you've got a cute little toy Maltese around!  Yep, thought so.  :)

We enjoy shopping at our local Sam's Club and I could not believe this 60" x 70" gorgeous faux fur leopard throw lined with a most luxurious microfiber suede was only $29.98?!!    Seriously?!  There would be more $$ in the fabric alone to make it myself.  Machine washable and silky soft I knew it must be mine and this one purchase triggered a little re-do of our hearth room.  Ya' know.... coordinating pillows must be made.   There might even be new windows treatments in the works.  Maybe.  ;)

Modeling must be such hard work

Thinking pillows would be a boring post I enlisted Towa's modeling help today.

Cracker?!  Did someone say cracker?!!

The (purchased non-zipper) pillows I had on this loveseat were getting old, but the stuffing was good and the size was perfect.  Using the old pillows as my pattern, I was able to match the cording size for the piping and found enough black corduroy in the stash for pillows around the same size.  Black velour found in the stash was used for the piping.  Kind of thought it'd be nice to have texture on texture even though black just sort of fades into black.  These pillows measures 20 1/4" x 20 1/4" because of fabric limitations.  The old pillows measured 21" x 21" with a 1/2" seam allowance, so figured I was pretty close.  I made 2 identical pillows.

I've made lots of pillows with piping in the past, but never one with a zipper so figured this would be a good chance to learn that process.  I could've used invisible zippers, now that I've got an invisible zipper foot for my machine, but decided to use black all-purpose zippers from the stash because they would never be used in a garment now.  I'm sold on invisible zippers in garments!!  Anyway, got everything cut out and ready to go and found I just could not wrap my head around how to sew the piping AND install the zipper.  A quick Google search later and stumbled on the best video by Peg Baker "How to Sew a Pillow with Piping and Zipper".  She used an all purpose zipper too so I simply followed her easy-to-follow steps and am pleased with how my pillows turned out.  You can see in the photo below the zipper pull I forgot to tuck in for the photograph (whoops!).... and how the zipper butts right up next to the piping at the bottom back.

Another view.... with the zipper pull tucked in.... how it all lays nice and neat.  There is an additional seam that you can see here, where the zipper is sewn in, but I like it.  It's not that noticeable and sort of tucks everything in.  Again, this is at the bottom back of the pillow.

Now that the modeling session is over, little Towa looks more like her usual self.... all happy and sunshine-y.  She's 10+ years now and as you can see from her white eyes, almost completely blind now.  We love her.

And Suzi wants to say hello too this morning!  She's been a part of our lives ever since I gave her to my mother-in-law years ago for a companion dog.  My mother-in-law is unable to live independently anymore, so we are thrilled to have Suzi with us now.

It was fun to pull all the supplies for these two pillows from the stash.  Sometimes that's when it feels more 'creative' to me...... see what I can make with what I have.  Now back to garment sewing!
Happy Sewing Everyone!  :)