Make your own Star Shaped Linen Stripe Pillow with Tassels

Looking for the perfect star shaped accent pillow? One that subtly says, “Happy 4th of July” in your living room or “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” in your baby’s nursery. Well, friends, your search is over! Between the neutral linen fabric and the tassels, this pillow has it all. Its the perfect pillow for your farmhouse styled living room or your boho chic nursery.

Personally, I intend to use mine in the living room to add a touch of Independence Day flare to my otherwise farmhouse meets french country style. I’ve also joined up with my good friend, Kippi and some of our other favorite crafters and bloggers to bring you all kinds of other inspiration for your 4th of July decor and celebrations! Stay tuned for links to their ideas following my pillow tutorial.

DISCLOSURE: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. MEANING, I WILL EARN A COMMISSION IF YOU GO THROUGH THEM AND CHOSE TO MAKE A PURCHASE. PLEASE NOTE, THAT I ONLY INCLUDE LINKS TO PRODUCTS THAT I BELIEVE WILL BE HELPFUL TO YOU, NOT BECAUSE OF THE COMMISSION I RECEIVE. REST ASSURED THAT THERE WILL BE NO ADDITIONAL COST INCURRED TO YOU IF YOU CHOSE TO MAKE A PURCHASE THROUGH ONE OF MY LINKS.

But for now, lets jump right into it:

You will need:

• heavy weight linen fabric
• rotary cutter, cutting mat and clear acrylic cutting ruler
• Gingher sewing sheers
• sewing machine, this Brother is the one I use and love
• straight pins and magnetic pin cushion
• thread
• fiberfill or cheap bed pillow/diy
• 100% cotton cord or 5 ready made tassels (4″ long looks ideal)
• tape

Months back, I found this amazing Tahari curtain panel at a thrift shop for $5.00 and immediately knew I just had to have it. I love working with thrifted fabric for my sewing projects and I have shopping for them down to a near science; you can read all my tips and tricks here. Some of my other recent thrift fabric flips include my sweater pumpkins or my sweater pumpkin wood bead wreath, my throw pillows from sweaters and shirts, and my fabric bread basket liner from a thrift skirt. Repurposing thrifted fabric is a bit of a passion for me.

Admittedly, that is more than double the price I normally pay for used fabric but for multiple yards of a heavy duty linen thats still a huge bargain. Not to mention, I love the stripe pattern, weight and quality of the fabric. And of course it didn’t hurt that it’s linen and I’m a bit linen obsessed. So, I took it home, washed it and added it to my fabric bin.

Well, thank you past self for the bargain, because last week I found the perfect use for it! Enter, the striped linen star pillow:

I wanted my star pillow to have a three dimensional look to it, so I decided to make the front and back panels out of multiple pieces. I got the inspiration from these cute origami paper stars.

I just love the look of them and wanted to model my pillow shape after them. So, I decided to make my pillow panels out of a series of triangles.

First, I drew some diagonal arrows on my pattern piece to indicate which way I wanted to stripes to run. And I used those arrows as a guide for where to place my pattern.

See how that wide group of stripes on the fabric lines up between two of the arrows on my pattern? By lining that up every time, I was able to have all identical pieces for my front pillow panel. One of my favorite things about working with linen is that it looks virtually the same from the front or the back, so I didn’t even worry about cutting some pieces right side up and some pieces wrong side up. I just cut them all the same and flipped half of them over.

Note: technically all fabrics have a true right side or face side, even linens, so if you want to be really particular you can cut 5 triangles with the pattern face up and 5 with the pattern face down for each pillow panel. just be sure to mark which is which, with pins, so you don’t mix them up later.

Next, I cut along the pattern by lining up my acrylic ruler edge with my pattern edge and running the rotary cutter along side of the ruler edge. This saved my BOATLOADS of time! Seriously, I don’t know how I ever lived without the cutting mat, rotary cutter, and straight edge. After cutting each piece I took a straight pin and marked the “middle” point of the triangle so I wouldn’t forget or mix up my stripe pattern later on.

Then, I lined up two cut triangles, so that the stripes were perfectly aligned, and pinned along the longest edge. I sewed them together using 1/4″ seam allowance.

I also went ahead a ran a zigzag stitch along my seam allowance and fabric edge to prevent any fraying or unraveling over time. You do not want to skip this step when working with linen…its propensity towards fraying is its only flaw. You could also use a serger here, if you have one.

I then repeated this 4 more times for each of my star points.

Next, I lined up the linen stripes along the short edges of two of my star points, taking care this time to make sure that my fronts were facing each other (seams out) and pinned and sewed them.

I then repeated this step, so I had 3 star points all sewn together.

I took the remaining two star points and pinned and sewed them together the same manner as well.

Next, I took the 3 star point panel and the 2 star point panel and pinned and sewed them together.

I first pinned at the center point by making the right sides of the fabric face each other and then lining up the stripes and seams as close as I could before pinning straight through the center of my star panels. From there, I pinned out along the rest of the edge and sewed the two panels together using 1/4″ seam allowance.

Again, I ran a zigzag stitch along my seam allowance and fabric edge for all of these new seams to prevent any future issues. After all, these are going to be throw pillows in my living room and as I do have two very young children, I am sure there will be times that they are not treated very gingerly….lol.

Next, I repeated all of the above steps for my second pillow panel and prepared to sew the two panels together. I front faced my two completed star panels to each other and pinned along all of the edges.

Now, because I knew that I wanted to attach tassels to each point, I did not sew all the way to the point itself. I sewed the panels together at all of the highlighted edges below and left a small gap unsewn at each of the points of the star, as well as, along one of the edges for stuffing purposes.

I then went back over all of my raw seam allowance with a zig zag stitch again.

Finally, it was time for the part I was most excited for. Time to attach my 100% cotton tassels! I am OBSESSED with these tassels as they are so cute and, even more importantly, so easy to make! Stay tuned next week, when I share how to make them. I made this set out of 100% natural cotton cord that I found at the dollar store!

In order to thread my tassel cord through the open star points I enlisted the help of that age old trick of using tape to create a lacing needle. I simply wrapped the tape around the raw edges of my tassel anchor string like so.

After that it was easy to run each tassel string through the unsewn star points so my tassels were ready to be sewn in place.

I then sewed the final edge of the point shut running right over top of the tassel anchor string to secure it in place and reversed and repeated many times until I knew it was secure. And finally, I cut my star point fabric seam allowance down to 1/4″ and tied and cut my tassel anchor strings like so.

Now, all that was left was to turn my pillow right side out, fill it with fiberfill or other cheap pillow stuffing and sew it shut.

And tada, my star pillow is complete! Now, I can pair it with my other Independence Day decor for a really festive and classy look.

This pillow would also look great in a twinkle star themed baby nursery and I think I’ll be making some more of them for baby shower gifts in the future!

Now its time to check out and get inspired by these other great 4th of July ideas. I personally love the rustic USA banner that Olivia made, it would fit right in at my house!

DISCLOSURE: THIS POST CONTAINED AFFILIATE LINKS (*). MEANING, I WILL EARN A COMMISSION IF YOU GO THROUGH THEM AND CHOSE TO MAKE A PURCHASE. PLEASE NOTE, THAT I ONLY INCLUDE LINKS TO PRODUCTS THAT I BELIEVE WILL BE HELPFUL TO YOU AND NOT BECAUSE OF THE COMMISSION I RECEIVE. REST ASSURED THAT THERE WILL BE NO ADDITIONAL COST INCURRED TO YOU IF YOU CHOSE TO MAKE A PURCHASE THROUGH ONE OF MY LINKS.