Wonky Christmas Tree Pillow Tutorial

The Wonky Christmas Tree Pillow Tutorial is another great project for the Christmas and is fast to make.

This tutorial makes a 15 inch pillow that is perfect for the holidays and also matches the Wonky Christmas tree mug rug and placemats that I made last year. Can you believe it took me this long to write the tutorial!

Fabrics:

• 1 yard of the background fabric for front and back of pillow
• Scrap of yellow, brown and four greens

Cut the following pieces:

White or light colored print

• White – cut 4 – 1½” x 4½” pieces
• White – cut 6 – 1½” x 9½” strips
• White – cut 2 – 1½” x 4″ pieces
• White – cut 2 – 1½” x 3″ pieces
• White – cut 2 – 1½” x 2″ pieces
• White – cut 2 – 1½” x 1″ pieces

Yellow

• Yellow – cut 1 1½” x 1½” square

Green prints

• 1st print – cut 1 – 1½” x 2½” piece
• 2nd print – cut 1 – 1½” x 4½” piece
• 3rd print – cut 1 – 1½” x 6½” piece
• 4th print – cut 1 – 1½” x 8½” piece

Brown

• Brown – cut 1 – 1½” x 1½” square

Use the following diagram to piece the Wonky Christmas Tree block, use a ¼” seam allowance for your sewing.

Border

Your block will measure 9½ inches, now add the borders.

• Cut and sew 2 white – 3½” x 9½” pieces for the side borders
• Cut and sew 2 white – 3½” x 15½” pieces for the top and bottom

If you would like to quilt your pillow top, do that before you add the backing.

FINISHING THE PILLOW

ENVELOPE STYLE PILLOW BACK:

For this pillow I decided to do an envelope style pillow back as I had plenty of the background fabric.

Each back side piece will be the same width as the front side and ½ of the length plus 4 inches.

This will account for seams and create an overlap which is the envelope part. If you make the pieces too short, you will have a gap when you insert the pillow form.

For example, my pillow is 15½” inches so 1/2 of that is about 8 inches + 4= 12 inches.

Cut two pieces of the print 15½”″ x 12″ for the pillow back. On each piece fold the one side under ¼” and press.

On one piece fold under another 1” and top stitch it. On the other piece fold under ¼″ and top stitch.

Place the 1″ top stitched piece face down on the pillow top, then place the ¼” top stitched piece face down on top of it. Pin the pieces to the front of the pillow.

Stitch around the pillow with a ¼” seam allowance. Double stitch over the area where the back pieces overlap. This will make the stitches stronger.

Turn the pillow right side out and press. Now all you have to do is add a pillow insert.

The Wonky Christmas Tree Pillow also goes with the little Wonky Christmas Mug Rugs. I have a tutorial for the mug rugs and also a place-mat that you should look at.

My granddaughter came over last night to do some homework and took this photo of me while I was working on this post. I love living this close to her.

I wanted to show you how I quilted the pillow but the design just disappears. Busy fabric is very forgiving when you are just learning to free-motion quilt. This little Wonky Christmas tree mug rug shows what the quilting actually looks like.

If you are looking for inspiration, hop over to Leah Day’s website and checkout her Free Motion Quilting Design Gallery. It is free and her short videos are great. I am sure I tried this design after watching one. She is one of the first free-motion quilters that I followed…..a long time ago.