Unicorn Pillow with Simple Pillow Construction

 

 

 

 

I went back to work full time and really my sewing time seems be cut in half. I’ve been working on more smaller projects for my home instead of bigger quilts. I hope you have a special someone for this simple unicorn pillow. I did invisible machine appliqué for the ears, cheek and unicorn hair. The horn, cheek diamond and eyelashes are glitter heat transfer vinyl and can be bought here in my Etsy shop. The pillow itself is a super simple construction and great technique to remember for a quick gift idea for any pillow.

 

Purchase the horn, eyelashes and cheek here

print your pattern here unicorn pillow pattern

Cut a 21 inch square from just a solid white cotton. I found the center and fused the eyelashes first about 5 inches above the bottom edge.

I actually cut my appliqué patterns out of heat resistant mylar. I used an emory board to make the edges a little smoother. I put my shapes right side down the wrong side of my fabric, pencil traced and then cut out about 1/4″-3/8″ around the shape. I laid the matching mylar shape back on and used a cheap stencil brush and starch along the seam allowance. With a hot iron and using the brush to get the seam allowance wet and pull the seam allowance up and over drying with the iron.

 

I did all of my shapes like this. In the picture you see the inside of the ears but I actually decided not to put the inside the ears on the final product.

Once I had all the shapes I actually placed everything so that I could find correct placement for the horn. I have a heat press and adhered the horn and the eyelashes with that. You can use an iron to adhere the product, here is a demo from the company I use.

Once the horn and eyelashes are in place I started sewing my appliqué shapes. I used a small zig zag stitch with Superior monofilament. I start sewing on a straight area, not corners.

I just kept adding a piece, pinning and stitching. moving to the next. The cheeks were super difficult and not smooth the way the other pieces were. I ended up sewing a running stitch in the seam allowance, trimming the seam allowance to remove bulk and spray starching, pulling the running stitch threads ( they will gather around the mylar cheek piece).

Again just sewed with a tiny zig zag, You have to lift your presser foot frequently to constantly when you are machine appliquéing this way.

I added the diamond to the cheek just with my iron. Make sure to cover the glitter with a pressing cloth of some sort when you iron it.

I made my pillow top into a quilt sandwich with a lining fabric for my back. I also did a back piece, white, into a quilt sandwich with the same backing fabric (this is the inside of the pillow). I added a heat transfer glitter vinyl name  and then just did some swirl loopy quilting around the name.

For the front I did a lot of back and forth straights curved type lines to indicate the face of the unicorn and then the outside I did some swirls and loose loops and some echo around the outside.

After I quilted the front and back I trimmed everything to 20.5″square. I had a small amount of a Kaffe fabric that looked great with the wonky dots. I cut 3 , 3″ strips and then cut them in half so they were about 3″ by 21″, 2 are for the binding on the top edge of the pillow front and back, then the remaining 4 for the pillow ties.

For all 6 of the strips, press in half, wrong sides together, open up and bring the edge to the center seam you just pressed, do both top and bottom and then fold in half again press for nice crisp binding. For the pillow top edge on the front and back just insert the top edge into the binding, secure with pins and sew about 1/4 inch away from edge next to the pillow edge.

Do the top edge of the back the same way.Attach the ties on the back side of the front and back about 5″ from each side edge.

With right sides together sew the front and back together at the sides and bottom seam. Turn inside out and put your pillow form in, tie your ties, and your done! Great job!