How to make: Throw pillow with zipper closure

                                

If you are a beginner sewer one of the easiest ways to spice up your living quarters is to change up the pillows.  Zippers are usually scary to most sewers, don't be scared.  They are actually quite doable.  In the past month I have made pillows for our newly finished back yard, my husband's birthday and my friend Kayte's new couch.  For Andy's birthday the pillows were made with some fabrics he found at a sample sale for about $10 each piece.  They were already pre-cut to the perfect size for an 18" square pillow.

For Andy's pillows I used a natural color canvas for the back.

For this pillow tutorial I used 2 different fabrics.

Fold over the raw edge of one back piece 1/2" and steam with iron

                                        Lay face up on top of zipper over the zipper tape

Attach zipper foot and sew

Take second back piece and fold over 2 ½” and press,  sew a ¾” seam allowance close to folded edge

Lay on top of piece 1 overlapping by ¾”Sew with back side up, be sure zipper foot is running along zipper teeth (see pic)

Back side complete!

Unzip zipper (you are unzippering this because we will be sewing all 4 sides of the pillow case) and lay front piece face to face with back piece

Pin together and sew a 1/2" seam allowance around all sides

Steam with iron

Trim corners at an angle so you can get nice pointy corners when you turn it back out.

Push corners out with a point turner, I like the bamboo kind

Iron and steam, 

Slip pillow into case. 

Finished!