Lucky Buttons Tutorial

As promised here is the (somewhat sketchy) tutorial for the Lucky Buttons mini pillow.

Aside from all the sewing on of buttons, its a quick little project.  Here are the dimentions of the pillow pieces

7 1/2 9 inch piece of canvas
(2) 5x9 1/2 inch pieces of canvas
7 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch piece of green accent fabric


In addition to your fabric, you will need an assortment of green buttons and some green embroidery thread.  To create the button shamrock...

1 - Layout a basic shamrock pattern with your assorted green buttons. It took a little while to get them into a shape that I liked.

 2 - TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR BUTTONS. I cannot stress this step enough. Munchkin likes to 'help'. My shamrock didn't make it past an hour on the table.


3 - Using your picture (or actual pattern) as a guide start sewing on the buttons onto piece of heavy fabric (I used a heavy canvas drop cloth). You need something heavy to withstand the stress and weight of all the buttons.

 4 - Fill in your basic pattern with layers of additional buttons to create depth. I also found some cute shamrock buttons at my local Jo Anns and added a few to the top layer for fun.

 Once you're happy with your button shamrock, hand embroider the word 'lucky' under the shamrock.  I was thinking of writing it directly under the shamrock, but for some reason ended up writing it on an angle.  And yes, I used ink.  I'm rebellious like that.  But it also meant that I had to go with how I wrote it - wonky angle and all.  I just used a basic outline stitch in green embroidery thread.

Now it's just time to turn this baby into a lil pillow.  The directions for the actual pillow are pretty straightforward:

1 - Sew the green strip to the left side of the large canvas piece
2 - Create an envelop enclosure for the back using the two additional pieces of canvas (there are tons of online tutorials for this)
3 - Sew the back to the front.  Done and done.

I did sew up a little pillow insert for it using an old white blouse - that way I can make mini pillows for other random occasions and only have to store the pillow case.