Good Monday afternoon sewing friends.

I’m so very glad you stopped by today.

Here’s a new, little accent pillow that I stitched up for my home.

I’m swooning over that fabric.

Look close, those are paper doll images!!!

I purchased one of the little, 2 1/2 inch pre cut packs, a half yard of the red daisy print,

and 2 yards of the fabric with the paper doll images.

This 12 inch accent pillow only required a fat quarter of the backing fabric,

but I love the paper doll images so much I was compelled to buy 2 yards.

I pieced 6 of the pre cut squares in each of six rows to make the pillow front.

Then I layered batting to the wrong side of the pieced front,

and used my new Baby Lock Sashiko machine to add hand-look quilting stitches.

The ruffle is made from 3 strips of 4 inch x WOF red daisy print strips

folded in half, wrong sides togher.

Using my Bernina ruffle foot (#86) (set to pull one ruffle every six stitches)

I sewed the ruffle to the right side of the pillow front while simultaneously ruffling the fabric.

Now on to the back side of the pillow.

For the closure, I used a zipper that was longer than I actually needed.

That’s how I always choose my pillow zippers – it makes for a super easy zipper install.

I also cut my backing fabric slightly larger than needed – it will be trimmed away later.

After matching the raw edges of the backing fabric with the edge of the zipper,

right sides together, I used my zipper foot to stitch the fabric to the zipper.

Then I opened up the backing fabric and pressed along my stitch line.

Instead of a straight stitch to topstitch the fabric to the zipper tape, I like to use a decorative stitch.

The stitch number is 1359 on my Bernina.

Then I stack all my layers together:

1.  Backing with zipper, right side up (open up the zipper a few inches)

2.  Pieced front and batting with ruffle attached around edge, right side down

3.  Muslin square – this gives me a lining to my pieced front

I basted all the layers together and turned it right side out

to make certain I did not catch the ruffle in the stitching,

which I did and I had to unpick my basting and sew two corners again!!!

Better to catch that now than in the final stitching.

Notice how my backing piece and zipper are larger than the pillow front.

At this point, I flipped it over so I could see the zipper.

I used my serger for the final seam,

so before serging I trimmed the zipper ends to reduce bulk.