Cleaning Your Pillows in a Top Loader

Who ever thinks about cleaning your pillows? But let's think about the abuse pillows get. You sleep on them every night. This means spit, sweat, oils from hair and face, and any face products you apply can seep in there. Plus, you fluff, kids battle, and they just get thrown around a lot. They deserve to be fluffed and cleaned every now and then!

This may be TMI about my family but...here's the before: YUCK!

Front loading washing machines are more ideal for this project but I don't have one of those so I just made do. They keep the pillow's shape better. First, I looked at the pillows' tags. They have washing instructions on them!

Then I shoved them, I mean I placed them in my machine standing upright. I think it would've been better to have them horizontal instead of vertical but I guess I can just call this part wayward.  I filled up the washer and then added detergent (I just used regular liquid laundry soap, a mixture of baking soda and vinegar can also be a great detergent). I followed the care instructions on the tags I found (one pillow's tag had been ripped off). The first symbol (left to right) means warm wash. The next means non-chlorine bleach when necessary. The third means tumble dry, normal, low heat. And the last symbol means do not iron (as if you'd iron a pillow). I have a key on my washing machine that tells me what the symbols mean. This can also easily be looked up online.

After the pillows were washed, They were a little misshapen so I beat them. No, really, I beat them over my knee until the insides looked a little more normal. Then into the dryer they went. I also threw in some tennis balls with socks over them for fluffing. The tennis balls help break up the fibers that might be unwilling to separate inside the pillow. This traps moisture and makes the pillow misshapen. I dried them for about 2 hours to make sure there was no left over moisture. Then they were ready for a pillow case.

And here's the after: SO much better!

Easy Decorative Accent Pillows

We got a new couch when we moved last fall. This meant I could also get new pillows (in my mind, no one actually gave me permission.) I had made an embroidered pillow with our last name on it a few months before and had plenty of fabric left over. I also made a table cloth (I took a home linens sewing class my last year in school!) and used left over fabric from that, too. I cut out 16" x 16" squares. Then I cut them along both diagonals to get 4 triangles. Since I was only making 2 pillows I only cut out 2 squares of both colors which resulted in 16 triangles. Next I laid out the triangles in the desired pattern.

Then I sewed 2 triangles in alternating colors together along the short side. Make sure you are sewing on the right sides of the fabric! The tan fabric is a jacquard fabric and definitely has a right and a wrong side.

 I had to check and recheck that I was sewing the right short edges together to get the right matching pattern for one side of the pillow.

Then it was time to sew the two larger triangles together. This was tricky so I started a the middle in order to get crisp lines. I pinned the seams down and sewed from the middle out. Then repeated in the opposite direction.

Then I sewed both sides together, matching where the red triangles were in the front and back to have a symmetrical pillow (forgot a picture of this step, sorry!) And then came the stuffing part. I left half of the bottom section un-sewn when I was sewing the two sides together. I stuffed to my hearts content. In order to get good corners I stuffed stuffing down there with scissors and made sure it went into the point of the corner. After stuffing, I sewed up the hole by hand. This could've been done by machine as well which would've been much faster but oh well!