Fancy Felt

As you probably saw in this pillow talk *giggle* post, I was really interested in the felt Christmas tree pillow, and figured I could do that myself!

Now, I'll preface this by saying- this feature was supposed to be of TWO pillows.  However, I seem to have misplaced the 2nd pillow cover, and thus only did one.  I'm only crying on the outside inside.  I think I bought two.  Did I only buy one?  They were $5 each.  I had to have bought two.  My ADD isn't letting me sleep till I find it, but I wanted to post this for you even though sadly we only have one.

Anywho... I digress.

The supplies were listed on the post from the original Michael's project that I linked on my pillow post.  I basically made it up from the picture, but here's what I used:

• 1 presewn (I suppose you could sew your own!  I can't... yet...) pillow cover.  Mine was 16"x16" from Ikea and was $5
• 1 8x10" sheet of green felt (I actually used 2 5x7 sheets, but you get the picture) I got my pack of felt at the dollar store
• small section of white felt, or whatever color to make the trunk and star at top
• Fabric glue
• circular pattern to trace (I used one of my new glasses from my grandmother)
• and the usuals: scissors, pencil (or something to mark the felt that isn't dark

First, I stacked my two thin sheets of felt on top of each other, and drew circles with the help of the glass.  Stacking the sheets made it much more efficient when cutting them out- sort of like a two for one special!  And who doesn't like a sale?!  :)

 

Then, cut your circles in half, so you have little half circles.   These will be the pieces for the tree.  I needed a total of 28 half circles, or 14 full circles to make my tree.

I sketched out a rough pattern of the tree, and stuck pins in it to hold it in place.  This way I could see if the scale was right before I started gluing.  (as you'll see later, my tree "branch" placement didn't conform to my pattern...)

The next part took me a minute to figure out: to get the right shape that you'll glue to your pillow cover, first put a line of glue along the straight edge of the half circle.  Turn the piece around, so the glue is facing out from you.  Slightly pinch, from the back, the circle, while bending the pointed ends up and toward each other.  Since the glue was facing out, you can now apply direct to your fabric pillow cover.  The straight ends may not match up exactly.

After the first piece is attached, now the fun begins!  You need to determine if you want a skinny tree, or a fat one like mine.  Had I realized, I would have put the pieces closer together on every row... mine turned out more like a triangle, but you get the picture!  Once you determine how you want it to look, attach your pieces to the entirety of your patern.

Then, decide on the trunk length/width, and the size of your "star".  I made one that was too small to begin with.  The one I stuck with was about half the size of the green half circles.  I liked the white because it had a nice contrast against the tan color of the pillow.

Once everything was attached with the fabric glue, I gave them all another good pat so they'd stick, and that's it!  Done in about 45 min!

Isn't this just so cute!  I could see doing something similar with shiny fabrics for Valentines day!  :)  (Anyone thinking THAT far ahead yet?!  I know I'm not, really, I swear!)

Hope you like it, and if you do this, I'd love to see your version!