Pillow Making Corners Square or Round?

I was of the mind that a good pillow should have round corners. I wasn't sure I liked that square corner dog eared look. So I set out to make a round corner pillow.

So I decided that a glass would be a good size for me to use as an outline for that rounded corner look. I traced the corner using the glass so I'd know where to sew.  I don't have any pictures of the sewn line but what I do have is a rounded corner pillow and a square corner pillow side by side so you can judge like I did which look is better.

Need I tell you that the round corner one is in front, you could tell that right? It was a great experiment and the square corner won. Now to get that sharp corner edge I make sure I sew each side to the edge and not try to move the fabric to turn a corner. I'm hoping you can tell what I mean by the following picture.



So each seam went right to the end, cut the threads and then began the next seam at the edge. It gives me really sharp edges.

 I make sure I cut the corners off so when it's turned right side the corners look nice and crisp.

Here's a set of pillows I did all with the square edges and now I have to say I like the bit of a dog eared look.

I'm partying over here 

The Cottage Market

 Sew Crafty Angel

Making Pillows Out of Fabric Napkins

I'm known for visiting thrift stores and one of the first places I head to in the store is the linen section. I just love me some fabric napkins.

This love of napkins started way way back when I inherited a linen table cloth and napkin set from my aunt. It had some embroidery on it in grey and it was just a so so design in my opinion but there was something about those napkins that I loved.

Those napkins became the pillows that you see below and I have not stopped making pillows from fabric napkins since then.

To make the grade the napkins have to have the following:

1. Be attractive to me whether it's the fabric or the texture of the fabric
2.  No stains because once there is a stain it's so hard to remove or should I say impossible and I'd really rather be designing and sewing then trying to get a stain out. 
3. A good size that would translate well into a pillow. Some are just too small and some are too big. Perfect to me is an 18" x 18" napkin.
4. The napkins need to be uniform in size so that when I size them up together one isn't bigger than the other, unless I'm making a different fabric back then it doesn't matter

Below is a picture of some new ones I just made.

I loved these napkins the minute I saw them and the seller at the flea market knew what I wanted them for but was surprised that I didn't care that they were a polyester blend fabric. Nope didn't care because the texture of the material and that little stitch border was calling my name. Size was a perfect 18" x 18".  I got the set of four napkins for $3.00.

First up was finding some images that I could iron on to the front of the pillows. Found some great ones at The Graphic Fairy site and also purchased some on Etsy.

The Transfer Artist Paper from Amazon  is my go to product for iron on. This product works great!

Because I loved the look of this fabric I made the backs of the pillows in linen fabric with the envelope style for ease of inserting the pillow so I could get four pillows instead of two.

Here's a closer look at the texture of the fabric and the stitch on the edge that I love.

Stay tuned for my next post and I'll give you some easy instructions for making your own fabric napkin pillows.