I'm just going to tell you up front that this is my 1st knock-off project.
And now I'm thinking I may need to do more of them! I can see why they are so addicting!
Back in the spring I found the most amazing ginormous pillow at Rugged Wearhouse for only $5. It was a blank canvas just waiting to be transformed. But it sat around my house for months and months until... Crafting with the Stars inspired me to finally do something with it! I scoured Pottery Barn for inspiration pillows and stumbled across two that would look great in my living room: the poppy pillow and the lavendar monogram pillow.
Both of these pillows are embroidered and, if you've been hanging around my blog long enough, you know that I DO NOT sew nor own a sewing machine. But that's okay. I had other plans to get these looks!
I used colors that would match my living room (red, olive, and gold) for each side of the pillow.
(Yes, in case you didn't realize, I put both of these designs on the same pillow. You know how I love reversible projects!)
Let's start off with the pillow itself. Like I said, its ginormous! 2 ft x 2 ft. Seriously!
Next up, let's talk about the poppy side of the pillow.
I remember (way back in the day) in high school doing a very fun project in my Spanish class involving Huichol yarn art. Its a technique of creating a design using yarn and moving the yarn in such a fashion as to give your artwork movement. I loved it! And thought it would be perfect for this project.
I scoured several stores looking for the "right" yarn. I tried to find some that looked crocheted to match the Pottery Barn pillow better, but ended up finding this fun ribbed yarn in all of the right colors.
I printed off a full 8.5" x 11" image of the pillow to use as a guide, found a starting point on my pillow, and proceeded to draw out my first poppy.
I drew one poppy at a time, filling each in with yarn befor moving on to the next because adding the yarn actually made the image slightly larger than the original drawing. I didn't want to mess up my spacing and wind up overlapping my images!
Also, I only drew the outline of the red part of the poppy because I knew it would eventually be completely covered with yarn in the end and the marker would never be seen.
(This stuff is seriously amazing. Better than a glue gun!! I swear!)
The turquoise line in the above photo represents the outline of the flower (where I drew it with the marker). I always did the outline of the flower first with the yarn then went back and filled it in the rest.
The orange line with arrows represents how I filled in my yarn. There was no specific technique. I just wanted to create movement by keeping the yarn in what would look like a swirly manner.
After finishing a flower with the red yarn, I went back and outlined it with the green yarn. I saved the stems and leaves until the end so I would not overlap them with any of the flowers I had yet to create.
I stopped periodically to compare my version to the Pottery Barn printout and update my star partner, Beckie, of my progress. I was really starting to see it come together!
After finishing with the red and green yarn, I went back to fill in the centers of the fabric with the gold yarn. I tied a knot in the yarn then, to thicken it, tied two more knots on top of the original knot. I trimmed off the knots and layered them in the centers of some of the flowers.
I love the texture the yarn adds to the pillow.
I ended up leaving off the little flowers that Pottery Barn scattered around the pillow. I really like the extra white space and the asymmetric look.
For the monogram side of the pillow, I took some liberties from the Pottery Barn version and instead of using a lavendar plant, I used a poppy floral design to help tie it into the reverse side of the pillow.
I created the design on my computer then separated the images into two so I could cut them out using my Silhouette.
I cut my images out on freezer paper to iron on and use as a stencil (this is also my first freezer paper stencil project!). I ironed down the floral design first. The little detail images in the poppies were so tiny that I just left them off. I did, however, keep the detail images in the smaller flowers.
I still had all of my acrylic paint from my Custom Wall Art project from last year which is also in my living room so I already had on hand the paint colors I would need. I mixed the paint with some acrylic paint fabric medium and went to work.
Once the floral design was dry, I went back and ironed on the M and painted it also.
This side of the pillow literally only took a couple of hours to complete, including drying time. Whereas the poppy side of the pillow took a good 6 hours or so!
Can you see that I traced around the M with a fabric pen?
Since my pillow was prestuffed with no way of getting the stuffing out without ripping out threads and resewing, I just painted on a stuffed pillow. Probably not the greatest for freezer paper stenciling, but it worked okay. I just used the fabric pen to tidy up the edges of my monogram.
So let's do a tally, shall we? :)
Pottery Barn Poppy Pillow: $49
Pottery Barn Lavendar Pillow: $29
Total: $78
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Pillow: $5
Yarn: ~$4 each so $12
Glue: $5
Paint and Medium: $4
Freezer Paper: $5
Fabric Pen: $4
Total: $35
I had the paint, freezer paper, and fabric pen on hand already so really my total could be ~$22!
Not bad, especially considering it is completely customized to match my living room!
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And I want to say a HUGE thank you to Beckie for being my star, offering tons of support and advice, and having faith in the project. :)
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