leaves pillow

It’s fall here on the East Coast. The air is crisper, the leaves are falling, pumpkins are appearing everywhere and the beautiful fall colors are beginning to show.

This is such a refreshing time of year isn’t it?

I am going to share a fun fall inspired Sizzix project with you today….. my “fall is in the air” porch pillow.

What I used: 10½” square of natural linen, warm & natural batting, cotton prints for leaves, backing, binding & triangle border.

It was love at first ~~leaf~~ sight when I saw this Brenda Walton leaves die. Even the box is snazzy. And pink!

Let’s get started cutting our pieces…….

Sizzix sandwich time ….. layer a cutting pad, your leaves die, cotton print fabric and another cutting pad. Roll through your fabi machine and watch the magic happen.

Note: You can add Heat n Bond to your fabric before cutting the leaves or use a basting spray to hold them in place while you applique.

Repeat with your triangle die to make the outer border. You will need 32 triangles total.

The notches created on your Sizzix die help line up your pieces more evenly when stitching them together.

A precise cut everytime. Hello cute leaves.

Helpful tip: if you don’t make sure your fabric is covering the entire leaf to be cut, you will chop off the tip of a leaf like I did. woopsie.

Applique the leaves to your center fabric square. I used a 10½” piece of natural linen. Adding a strip of lace for some extra cuteness is optional.

We are going to embroider the AUTUMN LEAVES verse onto the front of the pillow. You can dowload that here.

After printing the verse, i cut each word individually and taped them to the back of my linen square so I could position them however I wanted and trace.

You can use disappearing ink or an iron-out FriXion pen. Sometimes I use a fine point marker for smaller letters.

I went ahead and added the borders to my center unit before working on the embroidery. There is no right or wrong way, just do what you are comfortable with.

You will need 7 triangles for the left border & 7 triangles for the right. Stitch them together. Attach to each side of your center unit, and square up.

Repeat with the top and bottom borders. This time you will use 9 triangles for the top and 9 for the bottom.