Pleated Pink Pillow

Completed pleated pillow

          In a webinar I listened to we were challenged to do Pick a Project 2023.  I chose to make a pillow using a pleating technique that I had seen in a Sew News Magazine years ago.  I decided to do a large pillow to really show off the pleating.

Sew News Dec 2014/Jan 2015 issue

     I then needed to find fabric for this.  My thought was that most home dec fabrics would be a bit too thick for this technique so I looked in my stash for a more clothing type fabric.  

Hot pink linen

     I found a hot pink linen that I had bought many years ago in a kit to make a top for myself.  Never got it made and I no longer liked the pattern and the color was too bright for my coloring anyway.  So this $70 fabric/kit was now going to become a pillow.

Triangle for drawing lines

Drawing the lines for the pleats

     I cut my center panel the width of the fabric, 60", by the width I figured out in my calculations following the article instructions.  I determined the center panel dimensions by dividing the whole front into fifths equalling about 5 inches.  The center was about 3/5 of the front.  I then followed the instructions to make my triangle and start drawing lines on the fabric.  Some of the instructions made no sense to me so I wound up improvising.

     I pressed the fabric on each line, one at a time, and then stitched 1/2" away from the fold.  I pressed that pleat down and then pressed in for the next pleat.  Quite time consuming to say the least. 

Completed pleated center panel

Fusible knit backing

Adding the lining

     

     Because the fabric was so lightweight, I added fusible knit backing to the backs of all the pieces.  I fused the interfacing to the back of the pleated panel after doing the pleating.  I added a covered cord between the center and side pieces of the pillow front.  This helped set off the pleating.  I also top-stitched the seam allowances towards the side pieces to keep things flatter.  I then serged napped sateen lining to the backs of the pillow front and back panels.  I used my pillow template with the tapered corners to cut the lining pieces.

Detail of front panel

     I used the same covered cord around the outside of the pillow and placed a zipper in the back panel.  Sewed it all together and pressed and turned and stuffed in the pillow form.

Pillow back

Covered cord detail

     Several things I learned while making this pillow.  Linen is not really suitable for pillows, too flimsy in my opinion, at least for this piece of linen.  I had a hard time getting the folds pressed out of the fabric.  I tried steam and Best Press.  I left marks on the fabric.  I used a yellow Chac-o-liner on the pink, it did not come out :-(  This process is probably too labor intensive to make a pillow to sell.  A more substantial outer trim would have looked better on this size of pillow.