Porch Pillows with Recycling Grocery Bag Filling

I love to decorate my house for the holidays!  And that includes the front porch!  I have a wrought iron bench that I have placed pillows on for years.  Well that throw pillow obsession caught up with me…well my closet space anyway.  I decided I needed to find a better way to store my outside decorative pillows.  I also wanted to find a way not to use a fiber filling.  Even though my porch is covered the pillows can still get soiled and wet.  I worried about getting pillows dried out completely before storing them so they wouldn’t mildew.  Here’s how I got crafty….

First, you have to make your pillow casing.  I started with a 15 inch square of patterned fabric for the front and a solid color for the back.  I cut out a rectangular shape of white felt (I used a 6 ½ by 7 inch piece.)    For the bunny shape I traced a pancake mold.  I’ve traced cookie cutters, cups, toys…all sorts of things to get the shape I needed.  For the carrots I drew freehanded.  When drawing on felt use a color coordinated sharpie marker, then turn over the image onto the pillow to hide any markings.

Lay out your pattern.  Sometimes I will use a small piece of Aleene’s Fabric Fusion tape to keep my felt in place.  FYI only put this tape in place where you will not be putting a needle through it.  It will make your needle very sticky and hard to push through the fabric.

Using embroidery thread and basic stitches, stitch your pattern down to the front side of pillow.  For the bunny’s tail I made felt flowers and stacked a smaller size on top of a larger one and stitched in place.

Put right sides of pillow together.  On machine, sew a ¼ inch seam, leaving a 4 inch opening on the bottom side.  I always do a reverse stitch for an inch to strengthen each side opening seam.  Since you will be filling and removing and filling again these pillows over the years I suggest you sew each opening side of the hole separately down to prevent fraying and wear of your material.  Turn pillow right side out.

Now for the filling…use all those grocery bags that you have stowed away!  Close opening with safety pins.

Pillows are complete!  Tip…I pin a piece of black ribbon to the back of my porch pillows…I tie them to the bench to keep them in place.

I’m really excited how these Spring Easter pillows turned out!  I don’t have to worry about a fiber filling getting soggy, damp, or smelly!  When I’m ready for the next set of pillows I’ll just take out the bags and put them in the new pillows.  Then, I can stack as many sets of pillows easily away in storage.  Perfecto!

Enjoy!