Stitched Heart Deco Foil Valentine Pillow Tutorial

Hello everyone!  This is Kim Lapacek from Persimon Dreams!  I’m excited to be here today and to be sharing with you a fun pillow tutorial that is perfect for the upcoming season of love – Valentine’s Day!

This project is fun and free flowing.  I’m going to give you the basics to enable you to create it but I hope you take the tools and ideas I give you and create a heart themed pillow that is perfect for you!  At the end of December I shared with you a similar tutorial for a snowflake pillow … I think they look great together!

Supplies:

• (1) 20” square of pink fabric
• 22″ square of high loft HeatnBond® Fusible Fleece batting
• 22″ square of fabric for back of pillow top
• (2) 20” x 35” (ish) coordination fabric  for the back of the pillow
• 2.25″ x 90″ fabric binding strip
• Scraps of pink fabrics for snowflake appliqué
• (1) sheet Pink Melon Deco Foil™
• (2) ez Print Lite Heat N Bond® sheets
• Heart-Flake Pillow Template
• (1) Sheet of DecoFoil™ Hot Melt Adhesive
• Pressing Sheet

Directions:

Download the ‘Heart-Flake Pillow Template’ from Craftsy HERE.

The first page is the lettering that you will use with DecoFoil Transfer Sheets.  You can print this page out onto standard paper to use for tracing.

The last two sheets of the template you’re going to want to print onto the ez Print Lite Heat N Bond® sheets.  This will enable you to get the details of the snowflakes and hearts onto the fusible without having to trace them all over again.  Trust me, this makes your world a whole lot easier.

Once you have your templates printed out let’s get started on the pillow.

Start with a 20” square of pink fabric for the base of your pillow.  I chose a fun ombre pink fabric.  Lately I’ve been obsessed with ombres.

Now, cut out the hearts and snowflakes from the ez Print Lite Heat N Bond® sheets.

Fuse the hearts and snowflakes to the wrong sides of the scraps of fabric you chose for your pillow.

Now cut out the hearts and snowflakes along the lines.  I’ll admit – this is a bit tedious but I promise it will be worth it in the end.  This is something I will do in front of the tv or while watching my girls at a sporting event.  If you can … save the heart shapes you cut out from some of the designs.  You can use these on the pillow too.

Once the hearts and snowflakes are all cut out lay them out on the pillow top in a manner that looks pleasing to you.  Be sure to leave room for whichever word you’d like to add to the pillow top.  Peel of the paper and press down securely with a hot iron.

Now let’s add our DecoFoil word. I chose to use the words ‘hug me’ (I thought it was funny since it’s a pillow).  I have included the options for ‘love’ and ‘be mine’ in the template as well.  Trace the word you choose from the template printed out earlier onto the paper side of the DecoFoil™ Hot Melt Adhesive.  Cut out along the lines you drew.  Place the letters onto the pillow in a place that looks nice to you.  Place a Pressing Sheet over the letters and with a hot iron press evenly for 30 seconds.  Let the letters cool completely before peeling of the paper.  Now, place your sheet of Pink Melon Deco Foil™ shiny side up over the letters.  Cover with a pressing sheet.  Press evenly with a hot iron for 30 seconds.  Let everything cool down before peeling the decofoil off.  Once things are properly cool … peel of the decofoil.

And voila!  Your letters look amazing!

Create a quilt sandwich … backing fabric (right side down), batting, snowflake top (right side up) and fuse with your prefered method.  I prefer spray basting and I really like the Spray N Bond® Basting Adhesive.  Now it’s time to quilt your pillow top as you like.  I free form quilted mine using Aurifil thread.

Because I used ez Print Lite Heat N Bond® sheets to fuse my snowflakes down … they all needed stitching to secure them.  This was simple to do with my free form quilting foot and really just added to the end overall effect.

Once you have your top quilted, trim the excess batting and backing fabric so your pillow top is 20″ square.

Follow the Finishing a Pillow with Binding tutorial on Sew Mama Sew  (it’s the last one on the post) to finish off your piece and make it into a great pillow – perfect for winter!  I purchased a 20″ pillow form to stuff into my pillow.