Artek Fabric DIY Floor Pillow

Who loves fabric? I know I do! If you haven’t heard of Artek, it’s a fantastic Finnish company. They make and sell the most amazing Scandinavian/Modern furniture. With clean lines and classic shapes, you can’t go wrong! A great source for all Artek Fabric is Always Mod. I really love that they have great fabrics like Artek and Marimekko that you can use for your own projects – and like their website name implies, the designs are modern and stylish.

I’ve teamed up with my Think and Make Thursday co-hosts for a fun project challenge with Always Mod. We were each given a fabric from Always Mod of our choice (I chose Artek’s Siena fabric) and it was up to us to come up with a creative way to use it! But the fun doesn’t stop there! We are also hosting a super awesome GIVEAWAY with Always Mod for some stylish fabric of your own at our Think and Make Thursday Party tomorrow! So be sure to stop by and toss your name in the hat 🙂 And now for what I did with my fabric – I made a DIY floor pillow!

We have a space in our living room that was recently vacated by a baby grand piano. So we decided to add a couple of low bookcases to make a sort of little reading nook. The only thing missing? A comfy place to read! I was thinking about just buying some floor cushions, but when I got my Artek fabric, I just know I could make one myself! Here’s the pretty fabric I started out with – I just love the bold, modern black and white pattern!

Now, if your remember from this month’s Monthly DIY Challenge, I’m not the greatest sewer in the world. I’m pretty new to sewing, but this was actually a pretty easy project! So if you’re nervous about attempting this project – don’t be! If I can do it, then you can do it!

To make my floor pillow, I followed along with this tutorial from Oven Lovin’ Blog. The floor cushion is going to be 30×30, so I cut my squares to be 31×31 so I could have a half inch seam all the way around. Here are the pieces you’ll need:

• Two 31″x31″ squares
• Four 31″x7″ rectangles

To make the form of the floor pillow, I pinned one of the long thin strips to one of the squares, with the pretty sides facing in and the backside of the fabric on the outside.

I then ran the pieces through my sewing machine and gave a half inch seam allowance. I just used a regular straight stitch with level 3 tension and level 2 spacing. Like I said, I’m not the greatest sewer in the world and yet this project was really pretty easy!

Once I sewed the first long piece to the square, I repeated the process for the remaining 3 sides. I was left with a fat plus sign looking thing like this:

I ironed down all the seams flat and then pinned the second big square to the edge of one of the long side strips, and sewed. Then I was left with this:

Now the slightly tricky part – sewing the remaining edges of the square to the side strips. It’s a bit tricky because you have to sort of fold the fabric so that the edges meet up properly and it can feel a bit weird. I know that probably didn’t make any sense! Hah. Just be sure to line up the edges of your square with the side strips like you did in the beginning and you’ll be fine!

Once you finish you’ll have a floppy inside out box shape with open corners. To close off the corners, fold the edges flat and sew up and down across the opening. Then you’ll have a nice pretty corner like so:

Leave one corner unsewn and flip the pillow right side out by pulling it through the unsewn corner. Now for the easiest part – stuffing! I went to Michaels and bought 5 bags of fiber fill. I only ended up using about 3 and half, but I was worried about running out, so I went for the full 5. You can bet I looked a bit like a fool sidestepping down the aisles at Michaels with all these bags of fluff in my hands trying not to knock over all the displays!

Press the stuffing into the corners first to give it shape. Then just add fluff until it’s filled to your comfort liking! After the floor pillow is all stuffed and fluffed, hand-sew the last corner et voila! A lovely finished, fashionable, modern, and comfy floor pillow!

It really completes our reading nook and is a comfy place to chill out with a magazine or hunker down to watch TV! The second I put it on the floor my cat, Oliver, decided it was his personal cat bed.

He seriously wouldn’t get out of it! I find him napping in it all the time 🙂

I had to wait until he vacated the floor pillow so I could snag a few quiet minutes on it for myself! It’s perfect for catching up on the latest BHG magazine 🙂

I actually really enjoyed making this floor pillow and I plan on making another one soon that there’s room for more kitties/puppies/humans to relax on! Now be sure to come back tomorrow to check out all of my other co-host’s project links and for the fantastic GIVEAWAY at our Think and Make Thursday party! You seriously don’t wanna miss it 🙂

Ollie says ‘peace out and see you later – I’m gonna take a nap now. Zzzzzzz’

Which fabric on Always Mod is your favorite?