Butterfly Cushion

After two weeks of nothing but craft fails I decided to go back to basics and just make something that I've been putting off for no good reason.

Here's what you need to make your own cushion covered in fluttering butterflies:

Materials:
-cotton remnant, heavy weight fabric, interfacing
-standard sewing kit
-not shown: 1 piece heavy weight paper and a pencil

This is what my cushion looked like to start with:

It's super cute and cozy for the cold weather months but I wanted to switch things up a bit.

Steps:
1) I took off the fuzzy cushion cover, turned it inside out, and measured it.  I didn't have quite enough of my heavy duty cushion cover fabric but I was able to make it work because the cushion itself is down, so it's super squishable.

I didn't take photos of making the cushion cover itself.  There are loads of tutorials out there, plus it's the simplest thing in the world to make.  Just sew up three sides, leaving room on the last side to insert your cushion.

Before you insert your cushion and stitch it closed though, let's decorate it!

2) I used a remnant of cotton I had.  I didn't have much so I covered the back of the whole piece with iron-on interfacing to stabilize it.

3) While you're letting your interfacing cool down a little bit cut out a pattern for your add on shapes.  I made two butterflies, one just slightly smaller than the other.  Use any shape you like~

4) On the back of interfaced cotton trace out as many shapes as you think you'll need.

Doing it by hand like this is a bit of a pain but it's the only way to ensure that you'll use every itty bitty space you can.

5) Cut out all of your shapes and start determining a pattern on your cushion.


6) I couldn't get as many shapes out of my fabric as I would've liked so I decided to add some texture but layering some of them.  I basted a running stitch on the small butterfly, ruched it up, and then hand sewed it to one of the larger butterflies.

I liked the look so much that I decided to gather all of them!

They don't all have two layers but I like that.  Butterflies aren't supposed to look the same~

7) Hand stitch your shapes onto the front of your cushion, insert pillow form, hand stitch opening closed.

I used a similar technique as this to make my Fluttering Butterflies top for my niece.

Do you change your decor when the seasons change?  Cushions are the easiest way to add colour and something new.  What are some of your tricks?  Leave a comment below~