Following A Trend...the Plus Pillow

Have you seen the plus pillows and quilts and wall hangings all over the internet like I have? They just seem to be the hottest design right now!

In February, Sew, Mama, Sew had the I ♥ Pillows theme going on, and when Aunt Spicy, Erica and I saw this one by Cherie, we were all hooked! And got to scheming. We decided we wanted to make this pillow. All 3 of us. With the same fabrics. Because they're cool like that and I want to be like them, frankly.

A few days (and many emails) later, we had divvied up the colors and agreed to mail each other the appropriate strips so we could have have matchy-matchy pillows even though we all live a million miles apart. I got busy coloring in squares in my MS Word doc, and pretty soon, we had a pattern to work with! The problem was, we didn't have each other's fabrics! I'm not entirely sure why I didn't think about making it with other fabric first, but I tend to have tunnel vision to the nth degree, and just can not seem to modify my original plan once it's in my head.

Thankfully, though, Kelly stepped in and tested out the pattern for us. She made this lovely pillow with her scraps, and said that the pattern was easy to use and easy to modify. Which, YAY!

Aunt Spicy and Erica and I finally got our swapped strips, and I started to sew mine together. As I was motoring along, I wasn't sure I was going to love the final result (but I do!), and I didn't know what color border I should use since I wanted to make a 20" pillow cover to go on the 20" pillow I already have. :)



I knew wanted the pillow cover to be quilted, so after my internet friends helped me decide on Kona Charcoal as the border, I added some backing and some muslin to the top and quilted it corner to corner. I really like the effect, and will probably do that again when I do another plus pattern pillow or quilt.



Along with the suggestion for a charcoal border, a few suggested a Kona Aqua binding. Well... I wasn't about to do a binding on a pillow, but I loved the idea of something extra around the edge, so I used some aqua scraps and made what I'm calling a "flange" around the outside.



It was fairly simple to do, and I imagine the installation process was similar to using ric rac or pompoms or piping. I just laid the strips along the edge before I joined the back to the front, and sewed it all together.




I kept the back very simple, mostly because I just wanted to be D.U.N. Done. with this pillow. :)



And D.U.N. it is. It's living on it's new home, our new (to us) Ikea couch I found on CraigsList for $50.

I know Aunt Spicy has made a few of these now, too, following our pattern, with great success. And, without further ado, you can have the pattern for yourself!

Plus Pillow Pattern (JEM Collaborations)

(please excuse the highly unprofessional format of this pattern...you get what you pay for!)


I hope you feel empowered and able to make this pillow, now! To me, it looked WAY more complicated than it really was. :o) If you make one from this pattern, please come back and leave a comment (with a link to your blog post with pictures??!!) or email me to let me know how it went! I don't ever plan to sell this pattern, but I would like to make sure it's user-friendly, you know? :o)

Have a great day!

-----------------
While this isn't the point of this post, I have decided to enter this pillow into Stitched In Color's Blogger's Pillow Party for March. You should TOTALLY go over there and see the fabulous (and highly inspirational) pillows that people are entering! Wowzers, Man.