How to make pillows without sewing- for real.

Not a stitch required, I promise!  I hate sewing, and I’m no good at it.  I learned how to make pillows without sewing awhile back, and today I’m sharing one of the easiest tutorials that you will find out there, I promise!

First, the most important part of this is to gather the right materials.  Because the secret to this is- I make my no-sew pillows out of napkins, table runners, and placemats.

If you can find some that are double lined (and many are), then you can just remove some of the stitching, stuff, then use Stitch Witchery to close that sucker back up.

HomeGoods often has a beautiful selection to choose from, and often on super sale!

A couple of weekends ago, I had gone to Hobby Lobby on the hunt for decor for our fence and came upon this table runner:

It was 50% off!

I’ve been wanting to change out the pillows that are on our vintage railroad bench on our front porch (you’ll see it in a minute).  It was Michael’s dad’s from when he worked on the railroad, and it’s been in their family for a long time.  I love that it goes with our general “red and black” theme, but also looks holiday-ish.

I grabbed a couple of these:

And this weekend, in a matter of about an hour, had made this:

Materials

*affiliate links included

Cloth napkin, place mat, or table runner (I used a table runner for this project).  Make sure that there are two layers of fabric!

Stitch Witchery (I used black)

Fiber fill (linking on Amazon for convenience, but you can find this WAY cheaper in any craft store or Wal-Mart)

How to make pillows without sewing

Step 1: Use a seam ripper to loosen a seam in a corner about an inch or two, and pull the edges of the fabric apart:

Now, I know it is easier if you have a wider area to stuff the fiber fill into.  But, I have found over the years that it is much easier, and they hold up better, if you use as small a hole as possible- and Step 3 is easier as well.

 

Step 2: Use the stuffing tool to help you stuff the fiber fill into the opening in the fabric:

Even with this long table runner, this part only took about 30 minutes to complete.

Step 3: Use the Stitch Witchery and an iron to fuse the edges of the fabric back into place.  Sorry, I was not able to get a picture of this, but here is the end result:

An aside-

If you’ve never used Stitch Witchery before, it is simple to use.  You just put it between the layers of fabric that you want to bond together and iron together with the iron on the steam setting.  With this project, there wasn’t much area between the fabrics because of the black trim, so I ended up cutting the Stitch Witchery in half lengthwise and then ironing.  It worked like a charm.

Step 4: Enjoy your new, easy, inexpensive pillow!

 

 

And about that railroad bench…

Yeah, it’s got some “patina” to it 🙂 I’d love a dark gray stain on it, but I’m struggling with if that’s the right decision for that piece or not.  Since it’s an important piece not only to Michael but his entire family I want to get it right.  What do you think?