Fabric Swatches Projects: Dog Beds & Pillows

Pet Bed #1

With fabric swatches I created a funky blue and green feature that I could sew to a plain cotton rectangle. I laid out all the little swatches and worked on a few at a time. I chose to just do a zig zag stitch along all of the edges of the squares. Some overlap others and all of their edges are raw, no serging. I wanted to make something fun and colorful. I enjoyed mixing all of the patterns and prints together while sticking to a general color theme. 

Pet Bed #2

My dog loves this bed too! I filled it with leftover tulle so it's not lumpy but more of a soft pillow for him to lounge on.

Now my dog isn't big on sharing, so I decided to use as many blue squares as I could and make another little pillow for the cats. I sorted my swatches to see what was left and laid out all of the blue ones to see how they could work together. I sewed them in rows of 5 at a time to a large piece of cotton fabric. After I finished sewing the swatches I then finished the pillow by sewing all the edges together, filling it with stuffing, and sewing the lest edge shut. It's another popular hit with the pets.

Finished Throw Pillow

Once I was finished with pillow for the pets I was left with some larger blue swatches, about 4 times the size of the ones I had previously worked with on the pet beds. I sewed 4 of the larger swatches together to create a very fun, lively printed throw pillow.

I then took my 4 swatch creation and sewed it to a white cotton fabric with a faint paisley print on it. Then for the back I used a white cotton with tiny floral detailing on it. In a way this created a paisley border for the front and a nice crisp backside. I purchased an actual plain pillow to go on the inside of this since it's for my couch. Very simple in construction, but such a great project. It was easy, not time consuming, and very fun to just create your own fabric.