How to Make a Free Motion Embroidery Stitch Pillow

I recently discovered free motion embroidery and I love it! I combined two of my most favorite passions, art and sewing, and created this painted and embroidered pillow.

My new favorite DIY. It’s true. I discovered free motion embroidery and I love it. I bet when you first looked at this you probably didn’t even know it was stitched. Haha. Fooled ya!

I actually painted this pillow first and then added the detail with free motion embroidery.

What is free motion embroidery?

Free motion machine embroidery is a type of sewing that you do on a regular sewing machine but you can move the material in any direction while sewing it on your machine.  Normally when you sew, the machine automatically moves the fabric forward. When you sew free motion embroidery, you get to move the fabric so you determine exactly where you want to sew. You can move sideways, forward, backward and create any shape you want. All you need is a quilting foot.

The free-motion quilting foot, sometimes called a darning foot, is designed so that the sewing machine needle passes through a small ring on the foot. Instead of hopping, these feet float over the fabric without providing pressure.  The Foot releases the fabric when the needle is in the up position, allowing you to move the fabric freely.

All you need is the free motion foot for your machine. This foot may vary based on tour type of machine but I linked a “universal” one.

I read a lot about lowering the “feed dogs” on your machine when stitching free motion embroidery. Feed dogs are the little teeth on your sewing machine that feed your fabric evenly through the machine. These teeth are extremely important because they help us produce perfectly spaced, even stitches whenever we sew garments, piece quilts, or applique shapes on our machine. Most people recommend that you lower the feed dogs for free motion embroidery.

For this pillow, I lowered the feed dogs using a lever on my machine. But I did have some problems with breaking threads and tension. Next time I think I will leave the feed dogs up and use a Supreme Slider instead.

What You Need to Make a Free Motion Embroidery Pillow

Pillow cover (I used the Gurli 20″ cover from Ikea)

Acrylic paint and brush

Dark Embroidery thread (I used brown.)

Parchment paper or cardboard to fit inside the pillow while painting.

Free motion quilting foot for your machine (varies by sewing machine brand)

How to Make a Free Motion Embroidery Stitch Pillow

To prevent the paint from leaking through place a piece of parchment paper or cardboard inside the pillow.

Select your design. You can use inspiration from craft paper (as seen below) or anywhere! 

Choose your color palette and place paints on paper plates. Feel free to mix the colors as this will result in a more cohesive color palette.

Paint shapes on the pillow, not flowers. I like just painting shapes and not things. 

At this point, all you are trying to do is add color shapes, not specific flowers (the embroidery is for that).

Also, vary the colors and don’t just use one color. I added some orange to depict a warmer color of sunlight.

Let the pillow dry overnight. Or if you are impatient like me, dry it with your hairdryer. 

The best thing about free embroidery is that it doesn’t need to be perfect. I love how it looks when the two layers of stitches don’t match. And I love being able to push the fabric wherever I want it to go.

I loved making these roses. I had no pattern and all I did was sew a lot of crescent shapes. It was “free-handed” and not perfect. That is why I like it so much. As you can see, I roughly stitceh over the round painted shape, not worrying if the shape was covered or if I stitched out of the lines. 

As you can see here, the leaves I stitched barely conformed with the green painted “stems and leaves”. But I love that!

This was so much fun.

Watch the video to see how to make this pillow.

This is the other one I made.

I really love these spring colors. I hope I have inspired you to give this a try.

Pin the image below to your Craft or sewing boards on Pinterest (just click the Pin button in the top left corner). You can also follow along with me on Pinterest!

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