Tonight I was feeling a little frustrated. I didn’t get everything accomplished that I had plan to do today. I hate having things pile up during the holidays – there isn’t much that is festive about tackling mountains of laundry! Ha!
So to get myself back in the holiday spirit, I decided to make a fun poinsettia pillow. I’ve made these before and know that in just a few short minutes you can make a classy, festive pop of the holidays in any room.
Step one: CUT a pillow top to be whatever size pillow form you are going to use. I have a 20×20” pillow form from IKEA I will be using for this pillow, so I cut my pillow top to be 20×20” (and I’ll cut the back the same).
Step two: DRAW your petal pattern. Pointsettia petals are basically leaf shaped, so that’s what I’m going for tonight. I’ve used a few different rulers to make sure my pattern is symmetrical, but you could save some time and freehand it too.
Step three: CUT out your pattern and test it on your pillow top, checking to see if the size is what you’d like. (There is no “right” size here – just eyeball it and see if you like it.)
Step four: CUT out the petals from felt.
Step five: Fold your pillow top in half like a hot dog, then again in half like a hamburger – at the folded corner, stick in a pin. This marks your pillow top’s center.
Step six: Lay out your petals around the center pin. I like flowers to have odd numbers of petals, so I went with 7 here.
Step seven: Stitch down the petals one at a time, starting at the center and ending before the tip (like a vein on a petal).
Step eight: Decide Then there should be a second layer of smaller petals.
Step nine: Using the same method as before, make a pattern and cut out a set of smaller petals. Since this layer is on top, I chose to use 5 petals – again all centered in the center mark.
Step ten: Lay our the smaller petals and pin down the ends to keep them in place. STITCH on one at a time, same as before with the larger petals.
Step eleven: Hand stitch on beads, bells, buttons or sequins in the center of the flower. I used some of my great grandmother’s silver sequins and beads. To me, there is nothing more classic than sequins on all things Christmas! We have many handmade sequined ornaments on our tree, and our stockings are all sequined and beaded too! Check out the stocking I made James two years ago – who can tell me all the games/cult classics represented on this? 😂
And it’s complete! (Well, the top at least.) Turns out I don’t have the right piping in my stash to complete this pillow tonight. I’ll have to swing by the fabric store tomorrow and pick some up so I can get this pillow finished.
Happy Monday friends!
