Quillow Tutorial and Pattern

As a kid growing up my aunt handmade a quillow for my brother and me. We used to drive from Colorado to California every year for Christmas. I remember snuggling up with that quillow and sticking my feet in the little pillow pocket while we drove out to see her each year. With all those fond memories it is obvious why I had to share a quillow pattern for you all to create for your loved ones. These quillows are so fun and your loved one will just adore receiving one! Here is a quillow tutorial and pattern.

Quillow Tutorial and Pattern

What is a Quillow?

A quillow is a quilt that turns into a pillow. You can turn any quilt into a quillow by adding this pocket, although you will want to add the pocket before the quilt has binding. I have also included an instructional video below showing you how to fold the quillow because let’s be honest it can be confusing!

First Make a Triangle Quilt:

You can make a quillow with any quilt but for today’s tutorial we will first make a fun triangle quilt.

I am so excited to share this project with you! I have been given the opportunity to work with this great Cultivate fabric collection from Art Gallery Fabrics! Check out Art Gallery Fabric’s blog here.

They are two subsets in this fabric line Flourish and Harvest, and can I just say how amazing both are! I decided to go with the flourish line because it really spoke to me! For this project I used 1/2 a yard of each of the ten different patterns.

I cut each 1/2 yard into three pieces. Two 6.5″ strips and then an extra strip.

Next I cut each 6.5″ strip into triangles using my handy dandy triangle ruler (<—click there to get yours!) As you can see from the photo below I recommend lining up 3 or 4 strips before you cut. This will save you TONS of time! The key to success in this quilt is precision! You need to make sure that you make every edge as straight as possible, and don’t forget to cut the corners exactly as the ruler shows. This will help tremendously when it comes time to attach them together!

Now you are going to want to line them up as pictured below.

And then pin them together as pictured below.

Sew the triangles together into 8 rows each containing 13 triangles. When you sew these together you want to make sure and be very precise with the seam. Use the recommendation on the ruler and make sure that each seam is exact! Then sew the rows together so that the points line up and the fat ends of the triangles line up.

You can see the finished rows in the next picture. When you have sewn all the rows together it will be uneven along the sides. You will have to trim half of the triangle off on each side of each row.

For the back I used a large piece of spare fabric that I had lying around and I edged it with the Cultivate fabric. Then go ahead and quilt as you please. I decided to quilt in a straight line to create a fun pattern that mimicked the triangles. (You can see it a few pictures down.)

How to Make a Quillow:

Once you have quilted and trimmed the piece but before you bind it you will add the pillow part. *Go ahead and make just the quilt if you like it is totally beautiful! But the pillow part is fun too and if you want to make that part keep reading!

For the pillow portion you will measure the width of your piece. Mine was 36″. Now the pillow is going to be 1/3 that size, 12″ finished. I used the excess strips from my original cuts to make two squares that measured 12.5″. (I think mine came out measuring 12.5″ by 15″ but I was okay with that.)

Pin the two squares together right sides facing inward. Then sew around almost the entire square leaving a hole to turn the piece. Trim the corners and turn the piece out.I went ahead and added some quilting to the pillow portion for continuity. Then pin the pillow piece in place, it will be 12 inches from either side and lined up exactly with the top of the quilt. I liked the way it looked on the back and I couldn’t bear to cover up all my hard work on the triangles. Know that the part that is facing down will be the outside of the pillow when it is in pillow form. The part you can see in the photo will be the inside of the pillow. So make sure that you have your favorite side down so that is what shows!
Sew around three edges. Leaving the bottom open, as you can see below. I forgot to mention that the edge that was left open from when I turned it out was on the top so that when I sewed it down it was closed up.

Now you are ready to bind the piece and you are finished! The pillow portion is easy. The triangle quilt portion is NOT easy! I had never made a quilt out of triangles before and I tell you that I became good friends with my seam ripper! This pillow technique would work with any quilt so if you are a beginner don’t hesitate to use a simpler pattern! If you are brave then go for the triangle, just know you will probably be doing some seam ripping!