Easy Easter Pillow Tutorial

I looked at my cal­en­dar on the week­end and real­ised it is just over a month until East­er. Per­fect time for some East­er sew­ing! I have a remake of my Wool Felt East­er Bas­ket tutori­al to share later in the week so stay tuned for that one. Today though I’m shar­ing a new tutori­al for an easy East­er egg themed throw pil­low. It’s scrap friendly and quite quick to make because it has a flanged edge rather than tra­di­tion­al bind­ing or piping.

The pil­low uses reverse appli­qué to make the East­er egg shape. It’s a meth­od I shared a few years ago in an East­er table run­ner over on the Sew Mama Sew blog. That table run­ner is still around here some­where but I thought it would be fun to make a sweet little pil­low to go with some oth­er East­er pil­low I have.

Materials Needed to Make a 12″ Pillow

• Fab­ric Scraps, 1″ to 2.25″ wide and at least 8.5″ long: you will need around 10 — 15 depend­ing on the width of your strips.
• One 15″ x 15″ square of fab­ric for pil­low top background
• Two 13.5″ x 16.5″ rect­angles of fab­ric for the pil­low back
• One 15″ x 15″ square of plain sol­id or quilters muslin for the pil­low top backing
• 15″ x 15″ Piece of Batting
• 14″ x 14″ square of Freez­er Paper
• 12″ Pil­low Insert
• Spray Starch or Flatter
• East­er Egg Template
• Sew­ing Machine
• Gen­er­al Sew­ing Sup­plies includ­ing coordin­at­ing thread

Tutorial Steps

Note: I’ve recycled a couple of the pho­tos from the Table Run­ner Tutori­al. The yel­low fab­ric in the next few pho­tos is a pink stripe in the fin­ished pillow.

Pillow Top

1. Arrange and sew the scrap fab­ric strips togeth­er to make one rect­angle that is at least 8″ x 11″.  The image above shows 3 rect­angles. You only need one.

2. Print an East­er Egg Tem­plate. Make sure that the print­er is set to print at 100% and not “scale/fit to page.” Trace the East­er egg shape on to the dull side of the freez­er paper. Cut out the cen­ter of the egg shape with paper scissors. 

3. Cen­ter the freez­er paper on the wrong side of the 15″ x 15″ square of fab­ric for the pil­low top, then press with a hot dry iron. The freez­er paper will stick to the paper.

4. Refer­ring to the step-by-step images above (a) fold the fab­ric in half and make a small cut in the cen­ter of the fab­ric egg shape. (b) Open the fab­ric back up and trim a ³⁄₈″ seam allow­ance around the inside the freez­er paper. © Use a small pair of embroid­ery scis­sors to snip into the seam allow­ance at least every ¹⁄₄″ stop­ping at least ¹⁄₁₆″ before the freez­er paper. (d) Spray the seam allow­ance with starch or Flat­ter and then use a hot iron to flip the seam allow­ance back over the freez­er paper egg shape. Press well.

Turn the fab­ric over so the right side is facing up and make sure that the egg shape is even and firm against the freez­er paper. If there are any jagged edges or if the seam allow­ance is a bit loose in one area, respray with starch or Flat­ter, flip back over to the wrong side and press again. When you are happy with the egg shape care­fully remove the freez­er paper.

5. Cen­ter the com­pleted egg shape back­ground fab­ric over the strip set rect­angle made in Step 1. Pin in place. Using coordin­at­ing thread sew a ¹⁄₈″ seam around the egg shape to secure the strip set and back­ground fab­ric to each other.

6. Tak­ing care to ensure that the back­ground fab­ric is out of the way, trim the excess fab­ric from the strip set.   I like to leave a seam allow­ance of around ¹⁄₄″ — ³⁄₈″.

7. Lay­er the quilters muslin/plain fab­ric, bat­ting and the com­pleted quilt top to make a quit sand­wich. Quilt using your favour­ite meth­od. I quilted my pil­low with simple straight lines ¹⁄₂″ apart.

8. Fold the quilted pil­low top in half hori­zont­ally. Press to mark the centre then meas­ure 6.75″ from the centre at the top and bot­tom of the pil­low top. Trim the excess fab­ric as shown in the image above.

9. Rotate the pil­low top and press again to mark the ver­tic­al centre. Meas­ure 6.75″ from the centre on both the left and right side and trim as shown. The trimmed pil­low top should meas­ure 13.5″ square.

Pillow Assembly

10. Press the two 13.5″ x 16.5″ rect­angles in half with right sides togeth­er. These two rect­angles will make the pil­low back.

11. Lay the pil­low top right side up on your work table. Place one of the pressed rect­angles on top of the pil­low top so that the pressed & fol­ded edge is towards the centre of the quilt. Pin in place.

12. Place the second fol­ded rect­angle on top of the pil­low top as shown in the pic­ture above. Make sure that the pressed & fol­ded edge is towards the centre of the quilt. Note: The two halves of the pil­low back will over­lap by approx­im­ately 3″.

13. Using a ³⁄₈″ seam allow­ance sew around all four sides of the pillow. 

14. Trim the seam allow­ance to a scant ¹⁄₄″. You will trim approx­im­ately ¹⁄₈″ from the seam allow­ance. Next, trim the corners to remove unne­ces­sary bulk. Take care to ensure you don’t cut the stitch­ing line!

15. Turn the pil­low right side out. Make sure the corners are turned out prop­erly. Tip: Use the end of a chop­stick or a point turn­er. Give the pil­low a good press pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the out­er seams to make sure they are flat and not rolled under one side.

16. Head back to your sew­ing machine and sew around all four sides of the pil­low again using a ³⁄₈″ seam allow­ance. This will enclose the exposed seams on the inside of the pil­low and give the exter­i­or a cute flanged edge.

There you have it! A sweet little East­er egg pil­low ready for East­er dec­or­at­ing. If you make one of these pil­lows or, an East­er Egg Table Run­ner I’d love to see it! You can send pic­tures to me at shequiltsalot@gmail.com or tag me on Ins­tagram or Facebook.

Stay tuned for anoth­er fun East­er pro­ject you can sew in less than a day later this week.

Happy quilt­ing,