monogrammed newlywed pillow

Couples spend quite a bit of time on their wedding registries. I did when I got married. It makes perfect sense. "We'll make a list of all the things we like, and then people will go buy them, and we won't get any weird gifts!"

Enter Tara.

I am notorious for shopping off-registry. Don't get me wrong, I look at the registry, but then I tend to make something that (I hope) will compliment it. Anyone who dislikes this practice might want to mention it to me in the future before their big day.

B-T-dubs, Interior Designers are notorious for shopping off registry. We think we know better than you what you need. Right, wrong, or indifferent, it's just who we are.

Such is the case for Kyle and Summer. Kyle is my boss' son and Summer happens to like handmade things. Or so her Pinterest boards would have me believe. So for their nuptuals, I decided to make them a little something something.

Their registry had lots of classic items. Blues, navys, and whites. And the one thing that all couples' registries have in common - MONOGRAMS.

It makes sense. If the gal is going traditional and taking the guy's last name, she naturally wants it emblazoned on everything they own. This happy couple will now be sporting an equally cheerful monogrammed pillow.

I actually started with this side, which is basically a simple square mini-quilt. These are 3.5" squares, 5 high by 5 wide. It's a simple checkerboard pattern with whites and navys. It came out to roughly 15.5" square when it was done.

I bought a 16" pillow form. The rules are that I probably should have made the pillow top finish at 17" (because you lose 1" when you sew the front and back of the pillow case together with a 1/2" seam allowance), but I tend to like my pillows either - A) a little overstuffed or B) insanely squishy with a feather pillow form that feels like it's vintage. I went with Option A on this one.

At any rate, I made the top and quilted it with navy thread, 1/4" off of each seam to make a grid. Nearly all of these fabrics are from JoAnn's.

Then, the back. Drumroll please....

This turned out even cuter than it was in my brain. My plan had been to do a blue monogram on a plain white background. But then I realized I had enough of this preppy polka dot fabric left over from the front to make the back. It's so darn cheerful!

I love it when things work out.

The monogram is actually crazy-simple to pull off. I just got on Microsoft Word and made a big o'l M in a font that I liked and printed it out. I then traced that M onto a scrap of fusible web. I don't have a light table, so I just held it up to a window. Then iron it to your front fabric (solid navy), cut it out, and then iron it to your back fabric (polka dot). Then I zigzag stitched around the perimeter to secure it.

I used this invisible zipper technique to close up the front and the back.

Let me tell you, I was reeeeeaaaaly close to running to Bed Bath and Beyond for a mixing bowl and keeping this bad boy for us. I mean, Max's name does start with an M. But alas, my conscience kicked in. Also, I have plenty of fabric left over to make another.

In case you're curious on how much fabric I used, I bought roughly a FQ or skinny quarter of fabric of each of these, plus a few scraps I had from previous projects. I bought more than I needed because I wasn't 100% sure when I was shopping what I was actually going to make. I have TONS of fabric left over. A FQ of each of these fabrics would make at least 4 quilted pillow fronts. Easily.

And since I'm now a whiz at making pillows (like this one and this one and that one and those), I was able to make this start to finish in a few hours, spread over a couple of evenings. I didn't start the pillow until 6 days before the wedding (I'm being too honest here) and finished it in pah-lenty of time.

So there you have it. A great handmade wedding gift idea with only basic sewing skills required. The zipper is kind of intermediate, but you could always just sew the whole pillow closed. I mean, they're going to keep this forever so you don't need a zipper.

Right?

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