Christmas tree pillow

Well hello again! I do hope you’re well and enjoying time with your loved ones this holiday season.

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This week’s project is something you could easily work on with your kiddos if they’re on Christmas vacation. I came up with this pillow because I have a new one year old, so we did not get a tree this year. As much as we’d like to have one, I’d also like to not pull it off my toddler 47 times a day. 😉

Anyway, I thought I’d make her a soft Christmas tree that she can’t destroy or injure herself with, and I really enjoyed making it!

Here’s what you’ll need:

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Depending on how big you’d like your finished pillow to be, I’d suggest between 1/3 & 1/2 of a yard of the 7 oz. cotton duck natural.

I cut an 11″ x 16″ piece and taped a triangle, but this step isn’t entirely necessary unless you prefer ultra-crisp lines.

treepillow-6705treepillow-6709treepillow-6726Paint inside the taped area, adding a tree trunk.

I suggest waiting at least an hour for the paint to dry- I left mine overnight and it was nice and dry the next day.

treepillow-6753Using a ruler, trim off all but an inch of the excess unpainted fabric. treepillow-6759Now, you could easily use more of the same fabric for the back of the pillow. I had some old Christmas fabric in my stash that I’ve been waiting to use, so I used that, but the duck cloth would work just fine, too. treepillow-6766

If you decide to use a patterned fabric for the backing, I suggest laying the front of the tree on the wrong side of your backing so that they’ll match up when it’s time to sew them together. If your backing is not patterned, it’s not as important which way the fabrics are facing when you cut it out.

treepillow-6768 treepillow-6770-2Next, you’ll want to attach your ‘ornaments’, or pompom trim. I just used a zig zag stitch and wasn’t concerned about even spacing. I like the more modern look to it.

treepillow-6772Once the trim is attached, place the front & back pieces together, right sides together, and sew them together, leaving the bottom of the trunk open.

treepillow-6777Next, you’ll need to turn it right-side out. I found this to be slightly challenging with the size of the pillow, the stiffness of the paint, and the size of the opening, so I’d suggest just making the pillow larger, thus the opening would be larger. It took me a while to get it not only turned out, but to get the corners pointy, too.

 

Once it’s turned out, start stuffing! I made sure to really jam the fill up into the points. I just kept filling and filling, pushing it up and out.

Now, you could certainly hand sew it closed, but I didn’t. I just folded the edges in and kindof shoved it under my presser foot. It didn’t turn out to be as hard as I thought it would be.

Once it was closed, I just pinched it & smooshed it in an attempt to evenly disperse the stuffing.

There you have it! Your finished Christmas tree pillow!

Be sure to share yours in our gallery if you make one!

 

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