Pretty Little Pleats

 

First let me say, it was a whirlwind of a weekend in Atlanta. But more on that later!

For now we must talk about that cute little pillow up there :) I've mentioned before that I have a love of Essex linen. Once I realized I enjoyed working with it so much I was on the prowl for some good deals on it. So when I came across a shop on Etsy that was having a moving sale, I jumped at the chance and bought 4 yards of the Natural color. But I really wanted to branch out a little, so I got a yard of this fantastic Periwinkle color as well.

And then that fabric in the middle that I believe is a Valori Wells print? That's from a scrap pack that I picked up at some point. Clearly, the two were made for each other.

So I decided to rock out some pleats to dress this pillow up a bit. I wanted the fabric to shine, so I didn't really want to do any quilting.

I started with the scrap I had, and added enough Essex linen on each side to make it the width of the pillow form I had, and then added tons of length. Probably 3 times the length of my finished pillow.

To make the pleats I marked the pillow every 1/2 inch. I ended up enlarging the pleats to 1 inch each, because I liked the larger look. So at every other line that was marked, I folded on the line and and pinned it down to the next line. I don't think that actually made sense when typing it out, but I don't know any other way to explain it, unfortunately. And I didn't get to take any pictures because it took both my hands, and sometimes nearby objects, to fold and hold fabric down and then pin. And really, use lots and lots and lots of pins. And then use some more. I then flipped it over to the back and pressed with an iron, very carefully because of all those pins, in order to give the pleats a more crisp look.

To hold down the pleats I simply stitched with dark blue thread down the pillow, using the sides of my flower scrap as reference. And then another line of stitching down the middle. Because I wanted the middle pleats of the print to look different, texture-wise, from the rest of the pillow I stitched additional lines in that part of the pillow in white thread.

And a simple envelope closure to finish it up!

I think this is a pillow that has a lot of impact considering it's only 2 fabrics and minimal stitching. I also really love that the print stayed essentially the same, even when pleated, because of the shape and repeat of the pattern!

Yay for pillows :) Now go make your own Pretty Little Pleats pillow! Or this pillow is available in my shop if you want the look without the work.