Tutorial Tuesday-Ric Rac Pillow
Wed, Feb 17, 2010
At CHA I was thrilled to see a whole lot of Ric Rac in pretty much every color you can imagine. I was inspired by all the colors and thought that I would make a project that featured ric rac. Here’s what I came up with:
Here’s how to make your own super cute ric rac accent pillow:
Materials:
-2 fat quarters of fabric (one for the front and one for the back of the pillow) I’d choose a solid for the front because your ric rac is going to provide enough pattern on it’s own!
-2 yards each of 3-4 different colors and widths of ric rac
-Aleene’s Fabric Fusion glue
-poly fill stuffing
Cut the front and back piece of your fabric to be 15″ x 20″. Fold your ric rac in thirds and cut into 3 pieces. Layout the ric rac pieces on the fabric that will be the top of your pillow.
When you have them laid out how you like them, just pin it all down. You’ll use a lot of pins!
If you’re having trouble with the smaller teeny tin ric rac just pin it like this. Use the pin on either side to make a little channel to pin it down in. See how the little purple ric rac is being held down, but not actually pierced with the pin?
Now that you’ve gotten it all laid out, grab this fabulous glue from Duncan and start gluing down all your ric rac. I did try sewing all this at first. I wanted to use my clear thread, but my machine hated sewing with it and so the glue ended up working even better than sewing all of it!
You’ll end up with some hanging off the sides and that’s quite alright! After we sew on the back we’ll trim it all up!
Place your back fabric face down on the front of your pillow and pin around the edges. Sew around the edges, leaving about 4″ open along the bottom center of the pillow.
Trim off the extra ric rac that was hanging off the edge once you’ve finished sewing.
Don’t forget to trim your corners before you turn the pillow right side out!
Stuff it as full as you want and hand stitch around the opening you left. Enjoy you’re new accent pillow!
I used some nice spring colors but wouldn’t it be cool to switch up the colors for say St. Patrick’s Day or July 4th?
Or if you don’t need a pillow, just forgo the stuffing all together and make an awesome place mat!!
February 17th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Good tutorial
I wish I knew the secret to sewing with clear thread … I’ve tried it twice and it was a nightmare!
February 17th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Thanks! I’ve sewed with it before no problem, but I guess this time around it just wasn’t in the cards!
February 18th, 2010 at 11:57 am
I too had problems with clear thread when I tried sewing felt heart garland. For me I think the fabric slips on the thread and would bunch up. Finally got it but had to adjust with tension and stitch length.
February 19th, 2010 at 2:19 am
Erin! This pillow turned out so, so cute! I love ANYTHING with rick-rack on it. Such a huge fan. I just can’t get enough of how much fun it can add to any project. I’ve never used that fabric fusion before. I’m going to have to check that out for sure. I also hate working with clear thread. It just makes me plain grumpy.
However, I do know one trick about it and not sure if you’ve done this before..probably have…but I’ll throw it out there. When I have the clear thread on top, I have to use 100% cotton thread for my bobbin. I also set the clear thread at a distance away from my machine and do not actually have it in the normal spool holder on the machine. Does that make sense? It’s kind of the same principle as working with metallic threads and having that distance between the spool and the needle seems to alleviate the friction of the thread somewhat. Who knows, but thought I’d pass that on. Still makes me grumpy though. LOL 
February 20th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
I would like to give you some feedback on your business card holder pattern that I found at your previous site.
First thank you very much for posting such an easy and fun pattern to make. I wanted to quilt mine so used batting for the stablizer, which made it thick of course, just right for quilting. I found that I needed to adjust the width size for the cards to fit comfortably with plenty of ease of putting them in and taking them out. I made mine 5″ wide and the finished product is then 4 and 3/4″ Just perfect! The rest of the measurements remained the same.
Thanks again.