Cascading Ruffles Pillow

Using pillow case pattern ideas like this cascading ruffles pillow from Victoria Lavertu, you can turn scraps into a girly, trendy home accent. These pillows look great in the living room or in the bedroom.

Materials:

• A pillow form (or old pillow)
• An old sheet or any other fabric you like
• Sewing machine
• Coordinating thread

Instructions:

1. First of all, you want to measure your pillow form. Length and width and cut a piece of fabric that will wrap around the pillow.
    
2. The seams will overlap in the back like this, so make sure you left room for your seam allowance.
   
   
    
3. Take some more fabric and make 3" strips at whatever length you can get. I just did a bunch because I wasn`t sure how much I`d need. The easiest way to do this is cut at the 3 inch mark and tear along your fabric. The edges will be raw anyways and it`ll be as precise as you need it. Also, this is assuming you`re using 100% cotton material.
   
   
    
4. Now adjust your sewing machine to the highest tension and the longest stitch. Sew along the center of your strips. If your fabric doesn`t ruffle itself, than don`t backstitch at your ends and then you can manually ruffle it by pulling on your bottom threads.
    
5. Go back to your pillow base fabric piece and hem your short ends. You can serge and hem, or do what I did and double fold and press then hem. And sew your hem like so.
   
   
    
6. Now wrap the fabric around your pillow again and mark out the face of the pillow so you know where to put your ruffles. I marked the top and bottom.
    
7. Now you can start pinning your strips going up and down your pillow.  Here it is all pinned in place, ready to be sewn.
   
   
    
8. Sew along the center of the strips where you have sewn for the ruffling. Sew down each strip, backstitching at the beginning and end of each line.
   
   
    
9. With your ruffles on the inside, fold over the ends, overlapping your ends slightly. Pin your edges together.
   
   
    
10. While you`re pinning, be sure to tuck in the ruffles so you`re not sewing over them.
    
    
     
11. Once you`ve sewn the edges, you can serge or zigzag the ends so they don`t fray.
     
12. Turn right side out and stuff in your pillow.