Have you ever seen those “tuckable” pillows where you just tuck in the cross stitch and wished that they came in another fabric or were tought enough for needlepoint?
I know I have. One easy way to solve this problem is to make your own tuck pillow. Denise from Craft Gossip found this tutorial for making them. She points to the blog All about Me, which has links to PDF instructions of three different shapes: Diamond, Square, and Rectangle.
To have it work with needlepoint, you need to make only one modification and add one step.
First be sure to pick a heavier fabric than the light cottons shown in the directions. Needlepoint is a heavy, thick fabric, much heavier than cross stitch and requires a heavier fabric. Look for heavy weight clothing fabrics, heavy silks, and home decorating fabric.
Here’s the modification: You need a deeper pocket to keep the needlepoint tucked. The directions say to make the area for tucking 3/8″ I would make it 5/8″. I’ve put needlepoint into cross stitch pillows and 3/8″ is not wide enough to keep it in place.
Here’s the extra step: Tuck pillows are great for changing the design because the needlework isn’t permanently in place. I would however, secure needlepoint by blindstitching all around the edge to keep it in place. Although this secures it, it isn’t hard to pull out.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
I have been looking for instructions on how to make one of these pillows for sometime. But, I did not know they were called tuck pillows I was looking for another name for them. Now that I have found this site I printed the instructions and will make several for cross stitch pieces I have. Just one of these sells for around $7.00 in craft stores so thankfully now I can make my own and save some money. I want to make a few for Christmas gifts. Thanks for having this so much.
I’ve got so many cross stitch projects done and decided to learn how to use our sewing machine (my husband is the sewer). Your instructions were so easy to follow that in one day I had made 1 tuck pillow and NEARLY perfect – have to make an adjustment or two. Thank you so much for sharing these instructions. I’m going to be having fun making my own pillows.