Are they Christmas pillows or are they Christmas cushions? I’m not sure, but I do know I love them, no matter what they’re called!
These Christmas pillows were made from my Scrap Magnet quilt pattern. The pattern has instructions for a single block (as well as a lap quilt and an oversized block baby mat), which is perfect for a mini quilt or a pillow.
I used an 18″ pillow form in mine and it is nice, snug and plump.
Choosing fabric colours
When I first had the idea to make a Christmas themed pillow from a Scrap Magnet block I began thinking of red and green. I decided on having a single colour theme for each cushion. They would look nice and Christmassy together, but it also opened up the option of using them on their own in the non-holiday period.
I chose silver as my background fabric and kept the accents in black, as they added to the Christmassy feel.
However, if your response to Christmas decorating is to go hard or go home, then you could look at making each pillow in both red and green. A self contained piece of holiday goodness, as per these mock ups.
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Quilting the Christmas pillows
Once my two blocks were sewn it was time to contemplate quilting (for a second) before deciding on a cross hatch.
These blocks are so easy to cross hatch as there are so many squares to act as a guide. If you like your cross hatching to be spot-on then you could use a hera marker to draw in some guide lines. But I just went for the organic look and did mine by eye.
I’ve used a dove grey thread as it blended well with all the fabrics.
I find I don’t have much time for any quilt designs that aren’t organic these days. Am I lazy or sensible? A bit of both, I suspect. :)
Sewing the pillow backs
Once my pillow fronts were quilted, I chose some coordinating fabrics for the backs.
One of my backs came together beautifully. Look at the pattern matching across this zipper! I did not try in any way to achieve this, it’s a Christmas miracle.
Before I could get too excited though, I then sewed the zipper in the red pillow’s back and went to sew it to the pillow front.
Uh oh. That didn’t go quite so well. Rather than rip out the zipper and sew it again with correctly sized fabric I decided to add a couple of strips either side. Thankfully the fabric print hid the additions quite well. Catastrophe averted.
These pillows are now happily decorating my couch, waiting for some company.
If you’d like to make a Scrap Magnet Christmas pillow of your own, you can find the pattern here in my shop.
Happy sewing! (and remember, less Christmas cheer and more measuring when sewing your cushion backs) :)
Kirsty x
P.S. If you’d like to see a different Christmas cushion I sewed, check out this post here.
