Floor Pillows, cont.

The floor pillows measured 27”. So, I cut the front into a 28” square allowing for 1/2” seams. Next, I needed to cut out the back. Since I'm going to use a zipper as a closure, I needed to decided the location of the zipper. I decided to put it close to the edge. I cut out two pieces of fabric for the back. The first piece is 1 1/2” wide by 28” and the second piece is 27 3/4” x 28”. This will give me 1/2” seam for the zipper attachment and a 1/4” overlap. These pieces will be used as patterns for the red fabric. Here's a couple of pictures:

Here's the initial tracing of the front of the pillow. I used a straight edge and chalk to draw the sides. For the top and bottom, I followed one of the woven stripes.

This picture shows the three pieces for the pillow. These will be used as the pattern pieces for the red pillow.

Here's using a piece of fabric to check how much fabric is needed to go around 1/4" piping cord.

Now, lay the fabric out and measure where the pins are pushed in from each side. It looks like it's between 5/8" and 3/4". I will be using the 5/8" measurement so the piping isn't wider than the seam line. Now, I add the 1/2" seam allowances. The bias strip will be 1 5/8" wide to make the piping.

For each pillow, I'm going to need approximately 120" of piping. This will give me enough to go around the four sides and to finish the ends in such a way that you can't see where I started / ended the piping.

I finished the backs this morning. Here's couple of additional pictures:

Here's where I serged the edges that are going to be stitched to the zipper. I will also press under 1/2" on the narrow piece and an 1" on the larger piece.

I don't use any pins when stitching the zipper. I line it up with one of the lines on the zipper and then sew for a couple of inches. Then, I pull the zipper tab to close it all the way. I also lined up the edge of the fabric with the edge of the zipper foot.

Here's where I'm starting the lap on the zipper. I used my favorite notion - Wonder Tape - to hold the fabric while I stitched. This gave me the 1/4" overlap that I was looking for. Also, I used the extra zipper tape to make sure that I was missing the teeth and lined up with a measurement on the stitch plate.

Here's the finished lapped zipper. I know you can barely see the zipper.

Ok, any additional sewing today will be creating the bias binding and the piping. It's going to be a lot of work.

Happy Sewing!