This is a knife edge pillow with a contrasting fabric covered cord. I love hydrangea flowers and centered the blue/green flower in the middle to pull out the green color in my new office.
To create the fabric covered cord, first wrap the fabric around the cord (my cord size is 1/4") and measure out your 1/2" seam allowance on both sides. Mark and then open up your fabric. Measure this width and that is the width you need to cut out your strips. Cut enough to go around the perimeter of your pillow and add 2".
I cut the strips 2" wide, sewed them together, and then serged the raw edges.
I also serged around the edges of my two pillow sides. Do not trim off any fabric as you do this, just stray threads.
To create the cord, wrap the fabric strips wrong sides around the cord and stitch about 1/8" away from the cord. You can use a cording foot or the slim zipper foot, with the needle in the left position.
Here is a picture of what a Bernina cording foot looks like. It is wonderful to use because the groove on the bottom accommodates the cording nicely.
On the left is a generic, adjustable zipper foot. The Bernina zipper foot is on the right.
Begin to sew the fabric covered cord to the pillow, starting in the middle of one of the sides. Do not begin at the corner of the pillow. Do not sew the first inch of the cording. My seam allowance is 1/2", but when you first baste the cording on, you do not want to stitch as close as you can get to the cording. That will happen when you sew your final seam. Begin stitching, and when you get to within 1/2" of the pillow corner, stop with the needle down, raise the presser foot, and clip into the cording fabric 3/8". This will allow you to pivot around the corner and turn the fabric cording. Then lower the presser foot and continue sewing around the corner.
After completing all four sides, you are ready to finish the cording tails. Measure the ending cord 1" over the beginning tail and cut off.
Unpick any stitching on the fabric cord, and trim the cord off to have the cord tails meet.
Turn under the ending fabric tail 1/2" and wrap it around the beginning cord tail.
Now continue stitching over the fabric covered cord. It will be a little bulky.
I like to use the invisible zipper as the closure for home decor pillows. It is not the strongest zipper, but it is not opened and closed very often and I like the look of it--concealed. When you sew an invisible zipper, you use the invisible zipper foot. There is an exception to this--when you have a knife edge pillow that has a bulky embellishment in the seam, such as cording, ruffle, beading, lace, fringe, etc., on the bulky side you will need to use the regular zipper foot to sew on the zipper coil. To prepare for this, choose what side of the pillow the zipper will be sewn to. This will be your last chance to sew close to the cording (or other embellishment), so use the zipper foot or the cording foot and sew as close as you can get to the cording.
Pin one zipper tape "right side of tape to right side of pillow fabric." Talking out loud will help you pin and sew this correctly. Notice I have pinned with the pin tip towards the top and the pin ball towards the bottom. This will allow you to pull the pins out quickly. Always start at the top and stitch to the zipper slider or to within 1/2" of the pillow bottom. Since this is the side with the "bulky" embellishment, use the regular zipper foot and stitch 1/8" away from the zipper coil. This will allow some room for the zipper slider to open and close freely. The cording will hide the zipper tape.
To prepare for the other zipper side, first close the zipper to match and pin the two pillow tops and bottoms.
Then open the zipper and finish pinning the zipper tape to the pillow, with "right side of zipper tape to right side of pillow fabric."
Now you will use the awesome invisible zipper foot. Since it is a snap-on foot, you will use the low shank adapter and the Bernina adapter shank to make it compatible for the Bernina machine. The invisible zipper foot has two grooves on the bottom to feed the zipper coil, and a guide bar in the middle to help guide the coil through with the coil standing straight up.
Stitch from the top to within 1/2" from the bottom. Notice the coil standing straight up as it feeds into the coil. When you do the left zipper tape, the coil will feed into the left groove. You may need to adjust your needle position so that the needle is directly behind the guide bar.
I seem to be missing one picture. Once the zipper is sewn in, you need to sew a tiny seam above the zipper top stop and below the zipper bottom stop to finish the seam. Use the regular zipper foot to stitch close to your previous stitching.
Open up the zipper so that you will have an opening when you are ready to turn the pillow right side out. Now you will pin the other three pillow sides right sides together and sew around with a 1/2" seam allowance. Press your seams open and then turn right side out, pushing out your corners where the cording is.
They look beautiful and add a soft touch to my new office.
SEW *** CREATE *** LIVE
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