Red, White and Blue Half Square Triangle Pillow

Hi friends!  It's me,  Amber.  Today I have a fun little project + tutorial to share with you!  It's for this scrappy little pillow I made for my porch!

I used the cut-offs from this quilt (behind me and below).  The quilt is called Scrapology and it's perfect for scraps or fat quarters!  The pattern includes instructions for 4 quilt sizes and it's a really fun, easy make!  You can find more information about that quilt HERE.

Let me tell you how I made the pillow, in case you'd like to make one too someday!

You can take this idea to make any-size quilted pillow you want, and it's a great way to use up cut-offs from other projects!  I'm always looking for ways to put those scraps to good use!

From the Scrapology quilt, I had sets of cut-offs that included 1 light triangle and 1 dark triangle, each.  I sewed each set together along the long edges to create a Half-Square Triangle block and then pressed the seam allowances open.  Then I trimmed each one to 2-1/2" x 2-1/2".  This is a crucial step to make sure you have beautiful points on your Half-Square Triangles.  (Click HERE for a tutorial on how to square up Half-Square Triangles.)

I knew I wanted my pillow to be 16" x 30," so after squaring up my HST's,

I created a layout of 8 x 15 blocks (each HST finished at 2").

Note: I used a 1/4" seam allowance throughout this project.  

I sewed the HST's together in rows and pressed the seam allowances in opposite directions, alternating with each row.  Then I sewed the rows together and pressed the seams in one direction.  Then I had my long-arm quilter, Jen Ostler, quilt it with a 1" grid pattern.  I probably could've done that step on my domestic machine, but I decided to just have Jen do it when she finished quilting my Scrapology quilt.  I just used some cheap Muslin fabric that I had in my stash for the back of the panel (which will end up on the inside of the pillow).

 Note: Jen trims my quilts for me, so she took care of that part.  You'll want to trim all of the excess batting and backing after it's quilted if your quilter doesn't do it for you.

Then I laid the quilted panel on my pillow back fabric (the blue triangle fabric below) with the right sides together and trimmed the pillow back fabric to be the same size as the quilted panel.

Then I pinned the quilted panel and pillow back fabric together with the right sides together.  I marked an 8-10" gap at the bottom to leave as an opening when I sewed around the pillow with a 1/4" seam allowance.  (Normally, I would use a 1/2" seam allowance for this type of project, but I didn't want to cut off any of the points on my HST's.)

Once I sewed around the pillow, leaving an 8-10" opening at the bottom, I trimmed the corners to eliminate bulk.

Then I turned the pillow right-side out.

And used a point turner to carefully push the corners out.

Then I gave the pillow form a nice overall press with a hot iron.

I also pressed the 1/4" seam allowance where I should hand-stitch the opening closed.

Do you see the tiny little star Jen quilted into the panel?  That's her signature move!

She always quilts a hidden object into the quilt.  Makes for a fun little game of hide-and-seek!

Then I filled the pillow with Poly-fil, which you can get at Walmart or Hobby Lobby.  I probably used about one and a half 16 oz. bags. I stuffed my pillow form as full as I could get it.

I like to pin the opening shut at this point just to make sure everything stays aligned properly as I hand stitch the opening shut.

I used coordinating thread and an invisible/blind stitch to hand-sew the opening shut.

(Tip: I did add more stuffing as I was doing this part.)

My stitch is not so invisible as you can see - but that's okay!

It will be on the bottom, so no one will really see it!

This was such a fun little project!

I would love to make more of these smaller, faster projects in the future!

I made it for this bench on my porch (the bench is a lot smaller than I would like)!  I have been on the lookout for a bigger, wooden (maybe church pew-style) bench.

I hope you enjoyed this project!

Let me know if you have any questions or if you found some inspiration here today!

Related links:

For more red, white and blue quilt inspiration, click HERE.

For the Scrapology paper pattern, click HERE.

For the Scrapology PDF pattern, click HERE.

For the red, white and blue Scrapology blog post, click HERE.

For the "How to Square Up Half-Square Triangles" blog post, click HERE.

For more free tutorials, click HERE.

Thanks for stopping by today and as always, please let me know if you have any questions!