easy burlap pillow.

There are 2 things that I've notice a lot of on the Internet and the first is all of the fun knitting accessories that are available. For example cafepress.ca has these fun K2tog (knit 2 together) bags. I love these bags and I've been thinking how nice it would be to have something that had sc2tog (single crochet 2 together) printed on it.

The second thing that I've noticed a lot of are all of the stamped burlap pillows. Just google burlap pillow or do a search in pinterest and you will see tons of wonderful examples. Since I'm currently  obsessed with burlap, word art, and crochet I wanted to create my own burlap pillow for my office space.

I love crafting, but crochet designing zaps me of most of my brain power and creative energy so this project had to meet 3 important criteria: instant gratification, easy, and with the exception of the burlap it had to utilize current supplies. I did a google search on how to make your own stamped burlap pillow, talked to a few friends, and this is what I came up with.

As you can see from the picture below, excluding the sewing supplies, I didn't need much to get started. I purchased about 1.25 meters (1.37 yards) of burlap so that I would have enough to make 3 pillows. I used a reclaimed cushion that I had on hand, and I made my own stencil.

To make the stencil I simply chose a font that I liked the look of, and that would be easy to cut out. Using a regular piece of paper I then printed the stencil out. The next part was the hardest, and most time consuming, and that was cutting out the letters. By time consuming I mean a maximum of about 15 minutes. This job, however, would be super quick and easy if you had a Cricut or Silhouette electronic cutting tool.

I needed a 15 x 15" cover for my cushion so I added a 5/8 seam allowance and cut out two pieces of burlap. When I was done I centered my paper stencil on the burlap, and taped it in place. 

Using a black "wanna be sharpie" that I had purchased from the dollar store I then traced the letters out.

Once the letters were traced out I removed the stencil and using the same pen I coloured in all of the letters. Super easy I know, but doesn't it look great?

As for the sewing, using the closest matching thread that I had on hand I sewed a 5/8 seam around 3 of the edges. I trimmed the edges and I finished the seam off with a zig zag stitch. I then stuffed in the pillow, folded in the remaining edge about 5/8 and sewed in place. As you can see from the picture I messed up, and my last seam ended up on the side edge of the cushion as opposed to the bottom where it would have been less noticeable. The whole project took me about an hour, and because I mostly used items that I had on hand the pillow cost me less than $4.00 CAD to make.

When I was all done one of my daughters asked if I had made the pillow and thinking that she was about to sing my praises I said, "yes"!!! My daughter then looked at me and asked, "what does scu-two-tug mean?"

kim.