Happy Holidays everyone! It’s starting to look and feel a lot like Christmas here in our house, lots of last minute panic shopping and making for emergency hostess and teacher gifts. These piped pillows make a lovely hostess gift simply tied with a ribbon and you can whip one up in no time at all. Adding piping adds a professional look to a pillow and is so much faster than binding.

The beauty of Melody’s fabrics is that you really don’t need to do anything extra to the prints to make them beautiful. I added a simple felt snowflake and a few buttons to jazz up this panel from Melody’s new collection, Ruby Star Shining….

For this pillow I let the fabric (Bloom Springtime from Ruby Star Spring) sing and do it’s own thing…

I just wish I was faster at cross stitching, because once this bee is all stitched up it’s going to look pretty cool as a pillow, I think!

Want to make a piped pillow? Here’s how you do it:

Decide how big you want your pillow to be and cut a square of Ruby Star fabric to that size, plus ½ inch (I wanted 18” pillows so I cut 18 ½” squares for my pillow fronts)

You will also need:

• A pillow form
• A fat quarter of fabric for the piping (I used Lizzy House Outfoxed in jewel and coral – they match perfectly!)
• Piping cord (this is easily available at most craft stores or haberdashery departments and is really cheap)
• A zipper foot
• Your sewing machine

First up, cut your fat quarter into bias strips and sew into one long length – do this by cutting diagonally across the FQ – not straight. You can find a great tip for cutting continuous bias strips by following this link to SewMamaSew.

To make the piping cord fold the bias strip wrong sides together and pop the cord as tightly as you can get it into the fold. Pinning helps keep it in place. Leave a little tail of bias strip at the start of around 2 or 3 inches. Start sewing with your zipper foot on and your needle position as far to the left as possible. Keep your foot cozied up right next to the cord.

Once you have your piping all stitched, pin it to the right side of your pillow front, raw edges together. Ease it around the corners, and pin pin pin all the way round.
Using the zipper foot in the same far left needle position stitch the piping onto the pillow front and try to hit the same line of stitches again. If you can get on those same stitches your piping will look much neater at the end.

Finish a couple of inches from where you started and fold the end of the tail under and tuck the other end of the piping into it. Trim down if necessary. Pin and finish stitching round, until you get to where you started.

Layer your choice of pillow back (I used an envelope back) and pillow front right sides together and stitch all the way round, still using your zipper foot with the needle in the same far left position and sewing right on the same line of stitching as before.

Flip right sides out and stuff with a pillow form and admire your handiwork!

Many thanks to Melody for designing these wonderful fabrics and also to Kate from M is for Make for providing Ruby Star Spring Bee fabric (which is available for sale in her shop along with a selection of other Ruby Star fabrics!)