DIY Star Wars Pillows – Felt Applique

Create these fun DIY Star Wars Pillows with felt appliqué designs of your favorite droids, R2D2 and BB8. A fun hand sewing project that looks great on a decorative pillow!

Hello Crafty Friends! Today I am excited to share the new floor pillows I added to my son’s book nook area this past week – felt appliqué pillows featuring Star Wars droids! The pillows were plain red couch pillows that were super comfy but pretty boring. These new Star Wars pillows are much more fun and playful, which is perfect for this bright and colorful space!

The two pillows feature felt appliquéd designs of BB8 and R2D2. The entire design uses just a couple basic stitches including the running stitch and blanket stitch. I’ve always enjoyed hand sewing, so when I was trying to decide how to create the pillows, I figured this would be fun! I made the pillows reversible and backed them with Star Wars fabric left over from the Star Wars apron I made my nephew this past Christmas.

I created the patterns for these pillows in Photoshop, which is something new for me as I usually draw my patterns by hand first and then move them into Photoshop. Creating them on the computer from the start worked out so well, especially since these characters are made up of so many geometric shapes. I created each shape on a different layer in Photoshop so when I was done, I had all of my pattern pieces ready to go.

The patterns are available at the end of this post! Below are the steps I took to create the pillow designs and make the quilted borders for the front of each pillow. Once you have the front pillow piece, you can assemble the pillow like I did, with a zipper so it is reversible, or with a simple envelope back. I followed the tutorial “Zippered Pillow” in the book Handmade Interiors.

DIY Star Wars Pillows

Supplies Needed: 

*The following supplies are based on a 24″ x 24″ pillow.

• Free appliqué patterns – Grab the free files by filling out the purple form at the bottom of this post. 
• Front pillow fabric – orange and light blue fabric that each measure 25″ x 25″ (includes a 1/2″ seam allowance for sewing pillow together)
• Border fabric – 1/2″ yard light grey
• Border fabric – 1/2″ yard royal blue
• Back pillow fabric – Star Wars themed fabric, 2 pieces that each measure 25″ x 25″ (includes a 1/2″ seam allowance for sewing pillow together)
• Felt
  • White felt, four 9″ x 12″ sheets
  • Orange felt, one 9″ x 12″ sheet
  • Light grey felt, one 9″ x 12″ sheet
  • Blue felt, one 9″ x 12″ sheet
  • Scraps of black, red, and dark grey
• Embroidery floss in orange, white, black, light grey, dark grey, red, and blue
• Fusible web Wonder Under
• Grey and blue thread

Step by Step Tutorial

Step One: Cut out all of the appliqué pieces and iron them to the pillow fabric.

The first step is to transfer all of the pattern pieces to the fusible web. This way you will be able to iron all of the pieces onto the pillow before hand sewing. The method I use for transferring my pattern pieces is to lay the fusible web, paper side up, over the pattern piece and trace it with a pencil. You will need to use the pattern pieces marked “Reversed” for this to work. (the picture above is backwards as I forgot to do this the first time!!)

Once you have the pieces traced, cut them out, leaving space around each piece. Iron these onto the appropriate felt color. It is helpful to use a pressing cloth for this part so you don’t get fusible web on your iron. I use an applique pressing sheet (see Supplies Used at the end of this post) which I love because I can see through it!

Cut the pieces out of the felt on the pencil line.

Peel the paper backing off of each piece and assemble the droid characters. Start by ironing the large felt shapes onto the front fabric piece. It is helpful to first mark where the quilted border will be on the front fabric piece in the bottom left corner. The border is 2″ all around plus 1/2″ for seam allowance, so mark the border at 2.5″ from the fabric edge. Position the droid characters slightly over the pencil lines you just drew. This way the border will overlap the characters.

Trace the lettering for BB8 and R2D2’s name. For BB8 I did this after I ironed the shapes onto the pillow front. For R2D2 I did this beforehand as pictured below.

Step Two : Appliqué the characters using embroidery floss. 

Appliqué the felt shapes onto the pillow fronts. I used a blanket stitch for most of the shapes. My blanket stitch improved as I went, it looked better when I made it a bit smaller. Sometimes it got a little too big and didn’t look as nice. I used a split stitch for the letters and a running stitch for some of the small pieces. Check out Crafty’s 10 Embroidery Stitches to see how to do a split stitch.

Step Three: Create the quilted border.  

Once you have finished the appliqué, it is time to add the border. The finished border, after the pillow has been sewn, is 1.5″ blue and 1/2″ grey. Cut strips of fabric that are 4″ wide.

Fold them in half and pin them in place. I pinned the folded edge of the grey fabric at 2.5″ all the way around, overlapping the droid characters. Next, I pinned blue fabric so it lined up with the edge of  my pillow leaving 1/2″ of grey fabric showing.

I mitered the corners by folding the fabrics at a 45 degree angle at each corner and pinning in place.

Stitch the borders down with straight machine stitches. It took me a little while to figure this out, but I ended up doing 6 rows of stitching on the blue border, stopping 1/2″ from the edge so I didn’t have stitches in my seam allowance. It is helpful to do your first row of stitching on the blue border about a 1/4″ in from the folded edge. Then go back and add a row right along the folded edge. I did the same thing for the grey fabric and had 3 rows of stitching.

Step Four: Sew the pillow tops into finished pillow cases!

Once the borders are quilted, the front of the pillowcase is finished. Cut a piece of fabric for the backing the same dimensions as your pillow front and then assemble them any way you like. You can make a simple envelope pillowcase or create a zippered pillowcase. This was my first time doing a zippered pillowcase, so I followed the tutorial in the book, Handmade Interiors.

Check out my Unicorn Pillow Pattern for instructions on how to make an envelope pillow case backing.

I love how the pillows are reversible! They are definitely more colorful and playful than the plain red pillows that were there before! They are also so comfy when we are reading in the book nook. My son already asked me to make matching Yoda and Darth Vader pillows…but I think he is going to have to wait a while for those!

Get the Free Droid Pillow Pattern Files!

Fill out the purple form below with your first name and email address! The free file will be sent straight to your inbox! If you have already filled out the form below, don’t worry – you won’t be added to my list twice! This freebie is for personal use only. I hope you enjoy crafting something special. Please let me know if you have any questions :)