NewlyWoodwards

an unconventional home

Knock-off Pottery Barn holiday pillows

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I’ve gone a little crazy with DIY decor this year. Check out my DIY knock-off Christmas silhouettes here. My advent calendars are here. One ornament idea is here.

Today, I decided to share something new.

Knock-off Pottery Barn Pillows
I posted these PB pillows last week as inspiration. I’ve loved these since I saw them. At $29/pillow, I wasn’t going to buy them (remember my Christmas rule # 1: I will not buy anything). So, I set off to make them.

I bought this great linen-like fabric in the fall for pillows. I never made pillows so I still had four yards of this fabric on-hand.

I had old, ugly pillows that I picked up from Goodwill over the summer. I washed them and figured I could use them as inserts at some point. (Goodwill is a great place for pillows. I always find ugly pillows that are in good shape and good quality.)

I decided to learn to hand-embroider for this project. Sound hard? It isn’t. I found a You Tube video with Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching. It showed the split stitch (see the diagram here). It’s very simple and relatively quick. I just wrote the words in my handwriting with a fabric pen. Then, I followed the pattern. Cost – $.32 for red embroidery thread, $.50 for a wooden embroidery hoop (which I’ll reuse). So, $.82 total for embroidery.

It took about an hour and a half from start to finish to make my first pillow (Joy). That includes the hand embroidery, cutting and sewing the simple envelope pillow (see a nice video about the process that I discovered through Joi).

They turned out so great, and I think I’m addicted to hand embroidery. It will be a great craft to take on the road for travel. And, it’s quite therapeutic. You should try it. I’ve already decided on other embroidery ideas and picked up a book from the library for more ideas.

(If you like mine, check out Edie’s version of the pillows at Life on Grace. Thanks to Leigh for the link. I’m definitely not the only person with my eye on these lovely pillows.)

Comments

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  6. Kim, your pillows are fantastic! I’ve been wanting to take an embroidery class at my local fabric shop. I’m so impressed that you found videos and a book to teach yourself!

  11. I LOVE your pillows!! I was when Edie did them, and I keep thinking I should give it a try!! LOVE how yours turned out!!

    ~TidyMom

    PS I’m thinking I should start some projects for next year in Jan, when all of these projects are fresh in my mind and I have time! LOL

  12. I love your pillow, they look a lot like the ones Potterybarn had last year that I really liked. And I am really sorry but I linked the wrong post! If you delete it I’ll come back and add the right one. Sorry!

  15. When I was young, I used to hand embroider “Dad” onto blank white handkerchiefs for my dad for Christmas. It’s cute to look back at them now and see how my embroidery improved over the years.

    Your pillows came out beautiful!

  16. Thank you again for another fun link up! Your pillows are lovely. I really like the red thread you used. I could never do that sort of thing, so I’m very impressed. 🙂