Tulips and Turnips: Christmas Present Pillow Tutorial

So this is the Present Pillow Tutorial... As much as I'd like to say it's a great tutorial, there are some flaws I couldn't avoid since I was taking the pictures with my iPhone and not my regular camera (one of my sweet boys had hidden the camera for several days). I apologize up front about the apparent difference in color from photo to photo! The photo of the finished pillow is a good representation of the real colors.

This is about a 16" pillow. In this tutorial I didn't mention measurements because it would depend on the size of pillow you have. If anything is confusing, please let me know, and I will do my best at clarifying! : )

These are the supplies I used minus the white ribbon, last minute decision but I had already used the materials so I couldn't retake the shot ; ) So, you'll need a cutting mat, straight edge, rotary cutter, pillow, fabric, ribbon, and a great button.

I started off measuring how much fabric I would need by placing the pillow on top of the fabric and "eye-balling it". I don't have good advice for doing this more precisely but it always seems to work great for me, since I always measure a little more than it appears I'd need.

This step is for the back part of the pillow, instead of making the pillow case with a zipper, I thought a overlapping back would be cute with the ribbon running over the edge (as you'll see a few steps ahead). You will have two pieces of the fabric and you'll want to make sure that both pieces are long enough to overlap each other by several inches, at least three on each side so it fully covers the pillow.

Next, still working on the back, sew a finished edge on each of the inner sides of the over lapping pieces.

I laid out the front piece so that I could measure where I'd put the ribbon. But I only had one ribbon on the red fabric at a time when I was sewing. Such great ribbon, so easy to work with because it sort of sticks to the fabric.

Next I sewed the ribbon on right down the middle of the red fabric so it would look like ribbon on a present. I didn't pin the ribbon to the red fabric because I was worried about the pin holes showing with this particular ribbon. It's such a nice ribbon and really stayed put anyways so I didn't have any problems not pinning it.

This is a shot of the front.

This is a shot of the back, the pieces really need to be lined up carefully so the pillow looks like it's wrapped.
Also, notice the little end piece of ribbon that sort of hangs off the edge, I thought it would make a nice finished look to have a small amount wrap around to the other side, so it doesn't end with the edge of the ribbon.

Next sew the ribbon right along the edge of the back piece that would be on top of the other.

Now it's time to make the "bow", I used two pieces of ribbon for the bow, and one piece of ribbon to pull through two button holes to sew the bow to the button, which also acts as the "tail" of the bow.

Here I'm sewing the two folded over pieces of ribbon to make the two loops that form the bow.

Sew the back side piece that has the ribbon running along the finished edge onto the front side first, then sew the second piece on so that when you turn it right side out it will look like the ribbon crosses over each other just like a wrapped pillow. You want to be careful that all of the ribbon lines up so it looks like one big piece of ribbon.