Patchwork Pillowcase and more!

So I have a 'little' project in the works...I'm keeping it under wraps till it's finished (because there's a good chance it will be a complete failure!) but these cushions may give you an idea:

Any ideas?

Anyway, the striped cushion is simple. Two rectangles sewn three and a bit sides, turned, sewed along the same lines again but half an inch in (leaving the gap), stuffed and sewn the hole shut.

Simple!

The patchwork one is a little trickier (at least for me!). This was my first attempt at patchwork so pro sewers look away now! Here's how I did it:

Get some rectangles of fabric of a similar size. My pillow form was 20cm x 20cm so my rectangles combined were about 50cm long when laid side by side but only about 20cm deep. (I just guessed it though by laying my pillow form on top of the rectangles.)

Now that I have the cushion I wish I'd done all grey or all pink on the block colour rectangles, but I still love it! 

Lay it out how you want the pattern to be, but you want your main 'patches' in the middle. This will be the front of the cushion.

Next sew the furthest left bottom rectangle right sides together, on the long side that touches when arranged how you want them. Repeat with the others in the row until you have a long line of your bottom rectangles sewn together. 

Do the same for the top row.

Then arrange how you want it to look. As I knew mine were never going to all match perfectly I went for the 'purposefully off centre' look.

Then lay your top row on top of your bottom row, right sides together and sew again.

Trim the edges so they match. 

Then my least favourite step. Iron.

Iron all your seams open so they fold back onto the same fabric.

You can see it a little better in this picture. Then iron the short sides up a cm or so (I guessed) and then again so the raw edge is underneath.

Sew along that fold on both the short sides.

Next you need to lay out your fabric and fold it in on itself, making sure there is a good overlap around the mid point (wrong side facing out).

Pin it in place where the overlap is and then sew down those two sides.

Clip the corners near to the sewn line and turn!

 

And when you look at all the pretty seams you'll be glad you ironed them!

The pink cushion from the beginning is made in much the same way, but cut your rectangle to 20cm x 45cm (for a nice snug fit). Then follow the steps from 'iron the short sides...'.

Hope that made sense! If you make any yourselves I'd love to see, I have even more I need to make for this top secret project so if you have any other designs send me your link!