Guest Room Series: Ruffle Flower Pillow

In April I decided it was time to tackle the guest room. It's still a work in progress, but I wanted to show you some of the diy projects that have been completed. The first step was painting the room. I chose a light grey color (Benjamin Moore Grey Owl). A friend came over and we got the room painted in 1 evening. Next up was the bed. I decided to do a mix of white and charcoal grey. This is the 1st accent pillow I made.

I'm basically obsessed with making fabric flowers right now, so when it came time to decorate the guest room I knew it needed a pillow with fabric flowers. I had seen a pillow with yellow ruffle flowers, so I decided to recreate my own using gray fabric. This was a very time consuming project, but it was not difficult.

First I began by creating a cover for the pillowcase. I always use some form of this tutorial from Sparkle Power. I cut and hemmed the 3 pieces in a heavyweight white cotton then set it aside.

Next I tackled the flowers. First I cut 9 strips of fabric 1 inch wide x 90 inches long (the fabric remnant I used was only 45 inches long so I sewed 2 strips together)
Then fold the strip in half width-wise and iron.
All 9 strips cut, ironed, and ready to be ruffled.

To create the ruffle set your sewing machine at it's longest stitch and sew along the edge of the raw edge of fabric. Do not backstitch at the beginning or the end.

When finished sewing carefully pull on the top piece of thread and your fabric will begin to gather. Continue to carefully gather the thread until you reach your desired ruffle tightness or length.

Next take one end of the fabric strip and begin to roll. Putting fabric glue or hot glue every few inches to secure the flower. As you roll the flower you are at liberty to adjust your gathers or cut off the excess fabric if your flower has reached the appropriate size.

To finish I cut out circles slightly smaller than the ruffle flower and attached glued it to the back of each flower to further secure the petals.

Then I played around with the flowers to find the perfect combination and glued them on to the front of the pillow case. It was my original intention to sew them on, but I was being lazy and just wanted to finish the project so I used glue.

To complete the pillow I sewed the slipcover (using this tutorial) and ta-da a unique custom pillow that is the perfect accent piece in our guest bedroom.