Wedding Pillow Embellished with Ribbonwork Flowers

Good evening. Gina Barrett is back on Create & Craft TV tomorrow bringing back her new Flower Comb Ribbon Ruching Tools. Show time: Friday 13^th April at 11am – Freeview Channel 23. You can also watch online live or on catch up via their website.

These are fantastic tools for quickly marking out ribbon with a variety of ruching patterns. Simply stitch along the marked lines and gather to create gorgeous ruched trims and flowers. Gina has also put up a Flower Comb instructional video on her YouTube Channel so you can see how the Flower Combs work.

The show is bringing a great deal on a Mega Bundle that contains everything. Gina’s new instruction book, all the new Flower Comb sets, ribbons, thread, fabric marker and Kanzashi starch. It’s on interest free Flexi Buy too which always helps to spread the cost of bigger craft stash ‘needs’. Individual comb sets are also available on the show or via Gina B Silkworks.

I have had so much fun creating samples for the show and have lots to share today with more posts coming later xxx.

Wedding Pillow

I made this heart shaped pillow using recycled curtain lining and a pale pink gold foiled organza gift bag that I couldn’t bear to throw away. I love to recycle. Even the stuffing was taken from an old bed pillow that had lost its shape. Everything was well laundered and no-one would ever know that this was made mainly from scraps and junk.

First I made a heart template from scrap computer paper taped together to make a sheet approx 12 X 12 inches square. I folded the paper in half and drew a half heart, then opened out. This ensures that the heart is equal on both sides. The heart template measured approx 11.5 inches at it’s widest X 9.5 inches deep.

I used the template to cut X 2 each of cream cotton curtain lining and organza plus recycled curtain interling to provide extra stability and padding (cotton interlining is like a thin wadding/batting). I stitched around the heart using a 1/2 inch seam attaching a ribbon hanger to the top and leaving an opening in the side for turning through. I left a wide enough gap to pass my fingers through and make stitching on embellishments easier.  The seam edges of the opening were folded in and tacked (basted) to hold the layers together and help stop them fraying while working on the next stages.

Next I created a couple of ribbon hangers to hold the wedding rings (brass curtain rings in the pic). I used thin gold satin ribbon and attached using small snap fasteners, so that the rings could be easily attached and removed.

I used some little pink pads cut from felt to reinforce the fastener attachments. I traced the circle shapes from the Leaves and Buds Comb sets directly onto the felt using a soft pencil, then cut out. Circles are always tricky to cut neatly just by eye. These will be hidden under the floral embellishments so stitching did not have to be perfect. Functionality was more important.

I used instructions from Gina’s new Ribbonwork Flowers Book plus the Leaf and Bud Comb set, along with the Rococo Flower Comb set, to create the satin ribbon flowers, buds and leaves used to embellish the pillow.

I created an array of overlap and doucet leaves following instructions from the book and Comb 36 (Leaves and Buds set). The green leaves were made from ribbon and the gold leaves from scrap pieces of gold foiled organza (from the recycled gift bag).

Flowers  were made using  gold and cream satin ribbons, wrapping the gathered strips around flower stamens and stitching into a cone shape (Combs 1 and 3 – Rococo Set).

Leaf shapes were also created with pink organza ribbon to create buds. These were stitched in place building out from the pillow centre and disguising the snap fasteners.

Extra ribbons were also stitched in place to create little swags.

I continued building from the centre outward.

I created a hand made tassel to finish off the design. The tassel head was created with rolled paper strips using templates printed from Gina’s Paper Lathe CD. A brilliant pattern resource for making hundreds of different shaped tassel moulds and for rolled paper beads too.

I painted the tassel head with gold acrylic. The tassel was made with short strands of cream Cotton Broder left over from another project (most would of thrown these away but I can never waste anything –tee hee). I loved the effect of the varied lengths. Knotting the thread ends added extra interest. I created the loop hanger using macramé.

The cushion was then stuffed and the opening closed (stitching up by hand).

I hope that you like my wedding pillow made mostly from rubbish.

Off to write up blogs for my other samples. Back soon xxx.