Here is my finished tinted linen pillow! I have been storing away my polka-dot fabric for awhile just waiting for the perfect project...and nothing could be more perfect than this! It fits perfectly on the cute little telephone table I inherited from my grandmother.
I used the same polka-dot fabric for the back because, well...you can never have too much polka-dot can you? I also used some navy blue fringe I had to trim the entire pillow. It is quite larger than I planned in my head, but that's okay. It measures 20 x 15 1/2. I love it, and so do my girls...they have already requested pillows for their birthdays!
I always like to add a few embellishments to my projects, and added a small glass bead in each eye and a tiny red jingle bell on the tip of the little man's hat! Could this be Tom Thumb?
Some of the embroidery stitches I used are: satin stitch for the eyes and the inside of the wooden shoe, chain stitch for inside the bunny's ear, eyebrow and umbrella, and an outline stitch for the remainder of the picture.
This is how I assembled the pillow: I cut away the batting from the back-side of the muslin about 1/8" very, very carefully! You don't want to cut through the muslin, just between the two layers. Now, they do make scissors just for this purpose, but why not live a little dangerously!
This is what it should look like when you have cut all the way around. It is the same technique used in Trapunto in quilting. It gives the picture a little more padding and makes it stand out more.
I added a green border about 1" all the way around to bring out the color of the umbrella and to make the picture POP a little more.
Add your main pillow fabric, cut a backing piece the same size. Stitch with wrong sides together, leaving an opening about 6-8", turn out and stuff, stuff, stuff. Stitch up the opening, and take a nap!
Zzzzz...off to dreamland!
