Decorating With Fabric Projects – Sewing
How to Make a Falling Leaves Pillow for Autumn
How to make a throw pillow cover with leaves made of felt.
The leaves on the trees here are still bright green and probably won’t start turning until October arrives. The only place that it is becoming fall-like is in my house. I made this Falling Leaves pillow to “autumnize” my favorite chair.
While at a home decor store I saw a pillow with rounded flaps of colorful fabric adorning the front. It reminded me of a felt craft that I learned when I was a kid in Girls Scouts.
Was anyone else a Girl Scout when they were growing up? I was from 2nd grade to 6th grade.
It was so much fun being part of this all girl group. I loved acquiring badges, especially the creative ones – like Sewing, Dabbler, Drawing and Painting, and My Camera. I wish I still had my sash filled with all of them, but have no idea what happened to it. I did find one of the handbooks pictured above at a yard sale. I bought it just to reminisce.
One of the craft projects we made were felt leaves that we layered with different colors of felt. We made Christmas ornaments using the same technique. I didn’t make a pillow with my leaves back then – we hung them from a wire hanger with yarn to make a falling leaves mobile.
Once it was hung the breeze would make the felt leaves move – just like they were falling leaves. I know kinda of kiddie crafty, but fun to make nonetheless.
We used white glue back then to layer the felt, today we have such great products like Wonder Under and Heat N ‘Bond to neatly and easily fuse fabrics together. These old craft ideas can look modern and fresh with a tweak or two. No wire hangers needed for this pillow project.
How to Make a Colorful Falling Leaves Throw Pillow
supplies needed:
- Felt – in different colors
- Heat N’ Bond Iron On Adhesive
- Iron
- Leaf Template (Download below)
- A piece of cardstock to print leaf pattern
- Marking pen or marker
- Scissors
- Tiny nail scissors
- Pillow form
- Burlap
- Brown Thread
- Straight Pins
1. Apply a piece of Heat N’ Bond to one side of each piece of felt you are going to use for the top part of each layered leaf.
2. Download the template and print out on card stock. If you don’t have card stock you can trace the leaves onto cardboard to make the templates. Place the leaf patterns onto a piece of felt with the Heat N’ Bond on the underside. Trace with a marking pen. Cut each leaf out right inside the lines. Use tiny nail scissors to cut out the center stem on each leaf.
Click on pattern below to download.
3. Once all of your leaves are cut out, remove the paper adhesive backing from each one and place on a coordinating piece of plain felt (no Heat N’Bond). Keep them about 1/2 -inch apart.
4. Cover with a piece of paper and press with an iron set on medium heat until the two pieces are fused. Let cool.
5. Once cooled – cut each leaf out leaving about 1/4-inch of the bottom piece of felt all around the leaf.
6. To make pillow cover – measure your pillow width and length. To figure out width – Lay pillow on fabric and bring width sides up to seam on pillow form – add 1-inch for seam allowance for each side.
To figure out the length you will need – wrap fabric around the pillow until it over laps at least 4-inches on the back. Add 5 more inches to that measurement. Cut your fabric to this size.
This will give you one long piece of fabric. Hem the short ends to create finished edges making sure you they are both folded over right side to wrong side of the fabric.
7. Lay your fabric right side up and find the section that will be the front center. To do this wrap the fabric around the pillow with the overlapped hems to the back . Mark the front section with pins. I Photoshopped some lines on the photo to show you the front area on my fabric.
8. Place leaves along these lines overlapping slightly. Some of the leaves can go past the line to create more of a flowing feeling to the leaves.
9. Using light brown thread to sew the leaves to the burlap fabric along the cut-out stem center of each leaf.
10. It will end up looking like this.
11. Fold over the tips of the leaves along the edges and pin. This will keep them clear when you sew up the side seams of the cover.
12. Fold over one side and then the other so you can sew side seams. Pin sides together.
13. Sew seam on each side. Remove pins and trim excess fabric along seams if necessary.
14. Turn right side out and remove pins on folded over leaves. Place pillow form in cover.
