yarn cross-stitch pillow

I have really enjoyed sewing pillow cases for the pillows on my couch. I like picking out the fabric, and I like that they are personal to me. Plus, sewing smallish pillow cases is a generally quick project with a large payoff. This particular pillow project, though, I’ve been sitting on since I saw this photo on Apartment Therapy’s instagram.

I love these designs. And I love that they use cross stitching, which I’ve been exploring lately with my embroidery. But this cross stitching is on a large, fun scale. It took me a while to figure out how I could do something similar on my own, but over the weekend I finally got it together.

I started by using some felt I had on hand. It was important to me to use felt because you don’t need to finish the edges for felt, so any holes you create in the felt won’t fray. I knew I wanted it for a 12×12 inch pillow, so I cut my fabric 13×13 inches to allow for a half-inch seam allowance. once  had my square, I used a fabric pencil to draw half-inch grid lines. And then I started hole punching.

Figuring out how to create (mostly) evenly spaced holes, and how to cut out many, many tiny circles was the biggest challenge. But would you believe my little hand held hole punch cut through felt? It did. To cut each hole, I folded the fabric along each grid line so that my hole punch could reach the marks where the lines crossed. And then I got to punching. This part took a while, but I think it’s definitely worth it. Once I had my hole-punched canvas, I started stitching, using some extra yarn I had on hand and a large yarn needle that I normally use to sew in the dangling ends of my knitting.

I decided on “hi.” It’s welcoming, casual, and fun. (And also very easy to map out for cross stitching.) After that, I measured and cut fabric for the back of the black felt and the back of the pillow. Once I sewed it all together–leaving a hole to stick your pillow in–I was done!

I am really excited to see what else I could do with this idea. There’s unlimited colors and words or patterns I could play with, and it’s just too cute.