How to Finish Needlepoint Pillows

Creating and completing a needlepoint design is a great achievement that requires a lot of time and patience. Now that you have your finished art piece, its time to decide how to display it. It can be framed, quilted, or most commonly, turned into a pillow. A pillow is a versatile form that can be displayed in many areas and easily moved from location to location.

Things You'll Need

• Fabric
• Scissors
• Batting
• Sewing machine
• Stuffing
• Thread
• Needle

Instructions

1. 

   Pick out a fabric that goes well with your needlepoint design, but won't take away from it. Normally, a solid color is used, since this will be the back of the pillow.

2. Cut the fabric to 2 inches larger than the needlepoint design. Cut two pieces of batting and make the batting the same size as the needlepoint piece.

3. Place the needlepoint piece right side against the right side of the fabric that is going to be used for the back. Place the two sheets of batting against the wrong side of each piece so that there is now a stack of four pieces.

4. Place the piece under the needle of the sewing machine and sew a straight line around the perimeter of the piece, leaving a gap of about 4 inches, in the middle of one side, open.

5. Cut the corners of the batting off and trim any additional fabric.

6. Turn the piece right side out through the gap that was left open. Use the scissors through the gap to push out the corners from the inside of the pillow.

7. Place stuffing into the pillow, starting with the corners and then stuffing the rest of the pillow until full.

8. Close the gap either by hand stitching it closed or sewing it closed on the sewing machine.

Tips & Warnings

• For decoration, you can sew in fringe when sewing the initial four pieces together. Place the fringe on the inside, in between the right sides of the needlepoint piece and fabric piece