Sew Fantastic: {Tutorial } Rainbow Hexie Floor Pillow

Thursday, August 16, 2012

{Tutorial } Rainbow Hexie Floor Pillow

Go BIG, or go home! Isn't that what they say in Texas? Well we like to do things big here too in California. Those days that are extra hot we find creative ways to play in the house where it's nice and cool. My four year old girl is very creative when it comes to making forts, and playground type obstacles in our living room.

The inspiration for this pillow came from her. Watching her stack every decor, and bed pillow in a huge pile, and then jumping on it was just about the best thing she could think of. That's when I decided to fix two small problems in the house.

1. give her a giant reading pillow (or something BIG to jump on) And 2. maybe even a place for storing stuff like those extra guest pillows.

Here is how I made it!

You will need

rainbow scraps solids or prints it doesn't matter. Even a FQ bundle would work.

Needle

Thread

Scissors

2 inch hexagons (I buy mine at Paperpieces.com)

sewline glue pen

If you like to baste your hexagons by hand the glue pen is not needed. However the basting glue method is pretty fast to get through.

The left side is basted by hand, and the right side is the sewline glue pen basting method.

This photo is just to show the difference do not remove your papers until you are finished. This makes it easier to hand sew them together.

How many Hexagons should you make?

Red - 33

Orange - 27

Yellow - 21

Green - 15

Blue - 9

Purple - 3

Start by hand sewing your 3 purple hexagons like this

I use a ladder stitch, but whatever works for you is fine. Some people really like the whipstitch for hand piecing.

Use these 3 hexagons as the basis for your pillow shape.

Sew around the shape with each color until you get to the outside of the pillow (red colored fabric)

See this diagram for an example.

After you have all your pieces hand sewn down, I like to take a quick iron over them to press the ends down before I remove the papers. After you get a nice press you can then remove all the paper pieces from the pillow cover.

After you have removed the paper, lay the pillow on your choice of back round (I choose Kona in snow. This piece is basically only to reinforce the hand sewing so that it can be used without it falling apart.

You can spray bast, or pin bast the rainbow hexagon top to the white back round making sure it's nice and smooth. I spray and pin :)

I choose a matching thread for each color and added it to my top stitch, leaving the bobbin thread white. It's a little hard to see in the photo, but I stitched down each color row of hexagons to the white back round. This is what reinforces the hand sewing.

When you are done with each color, trim1/2 inch from the point of your outside hexagons (see photo)

I added an envelope style back, but you can certainly do a zipper. I in fact ordered one to replace my back later. If you do an envelope back, make sure to make the flaps overlap a little more then you would for a smaller pillow.

After you have sewn your front ant back together, flip it right side out and stuff with all those extra guest pillow that you have up in the closet. To give you an idea on size, we stuffed this one with 2 king size pillow and 2 standard pillows with a little room to spare :)

Pillow measures approx 42" x 42"

and I am pretty sure it's kids approved :)