project #2 – the four large pillows

After I finished with the accent pillows, I eyed the four large brown pillows on the couch.  It looked like a lot of work, especially because this time, I wanted to add invisible zippers.  It reminded me of the days when my mom had me work on some alterations and invisible zippers were her thing.  I recall watching her put them together on a skirt… and boy, it looked difficult.  Nevertheless, I felt confident enough to take on task/project #2. Below is the BEFORE  picture of the couch:

I went back to Mary Jo’s Cloth Store, in search of thick, durable cloth. I wanted to make sure that the pillows would not only hold up nicely on the couch, but also hold up in the washer and dryer.  I decided on the heavy duty white duck cloth.

I first used measuring tape on each pillow, then added 1.5″ to each side.  I had to account for the volume of batting around the pillows. Additionally, I wanted to add some life to the pillows since over time they had become flat.  The material inside the pillows were comprised of loose cotton stuffing.  But I was afraid that if I added more cotton stuffing, the pillows might end up lumpy.  The solution? I decided to wrap the pillows with a batting sheet made for quilts and it turned out great.

After wrapping the batting sheet around the pillow  and reinforcing the cotton with a simple sewing using thread and needle, it was time to move on to the covers of the pillows.  The tricky part was adding the invisible zipper.  Thankfully, my friend’s sewing machine came with a foot, attached to the sewing machine that was designed for attachings zippers (Thank you Olivia!!! Check her out at: The Bean in Wonderland). It was simple, yet time consuming, but I finally did it!  Four pillows later…  It came out like this:

The finished product?
Yep, super happy.  The apartment looks more spacious with the four white pillows!  Now onto project #3 : two large seat cushions . To add zippers, or to not add zippers?  That is the question…

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