Macrame Fringe Trim Pillow Tutorial

We’ve been slowly finishing projects and making updates to our Master Bedroom over the past few months, and I’m loving how it’s coming together! If you’ve been following along, you might remember how we painted the walls back to white, painstakingly scraped the popcorn ceilings, made a simple upholstered headboard with a round boho tapestry, used an old vanity chopped in two for identical night stands with mid-century pulls, and added a statement wall by cutting plywood into geometric shapes and affixing them to the wall.

Phew! That totally felt like a run-on sentence.

But nobody ever accused me of being a good writer, soooooo… moving on!

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I’ve been painfully aware that our bedding could use some serious updating. I legitimately think I would be FAR more likely to make my bed everyday if I loved my bed and slept in a cute room. Can I get an amen?!

I had ordered this neutral linen-ish duvet cover with giant pom-poms at the foot of the bed… which I loooove (which I just noticed is totally on sale). But I needed to add some fluffy pillows to add some texture and interest.

Since the headboard is so detailed and the wall makes such a statement, I knew I wanted to stay super neutral in color with the bedding and pillows, while still pulling in a variety of textures. Because textures are the new black.

I have some fringe that I’ve picked up at garage sales over time, and I’ve been itching to use them. And since they have a sort of hippie boho macramé vibe, I decided I definitely wanted to incorporate them into our bedroom décor!

Macrame Fringe Tassel Pillow

Supplies:

• Plain linen zipper pillow cover in the dimensions of your pillow insert
• An assortment of decorative fringe-y trim (I found mine at yard sales, but you can find some similar here or here)
• Yard stick
• Fabric scissors
• Washable fabric pen
• Fabric Glue (used Liquid Stitch)
• Fray Check

I laid out my plain pillow cover. I probably could have ironed it first, but I’m not that kinda girl.

Then I cut my first row of fringe trim to be the exact width of the pillow case. No measuring necessary! Just line em up and cut!

Lay out and cut the rest of your rows of trim to length, and spend some time rearranging them till you get them just how you want them on the finished product!

Make little marks on the edges of where your line of glue will be, that way when you remove the fringe trim, you can use your yard stick (or anything with a straight edge) to connect the dots and make a straight line across… with your fabric marking pen. (or if your me, you use your kid’s crayola marker because it’s conveniently within arms reach and it’s going to be covered by fringe anyway)

Be sure to follow all the instructions on your fabric glue (I used Liquid Stitch) and squeeze out an even strip of glue across one of your pen lines. Then start at one end and carefully press down the fringe trim as you go. It’s ok if it doesn’t go down perfect, because you have some time to readjust before the glue dries.

Note! Of COURSE you can use a sewing machine instead of fabric glue for this, but I just didn’t want to mess with trying to manipulate the pillow cover in such a way that I wasn’t sewing through both layers. You might be a more skilled seamstress than me though, so go for it!

Stand back and make sure it’s straight and even, adjusting as necessary. Then glue down the rest of your rows the same way!

Repeat these steps on the opposite side of your cover so they mirror each other. And use the Fray Check on the edges to prevent your trim from fraying on ya!

This fabric glue dries to the touch pretty fast, but I gave it a good 24 hours before I messed with it just to be safe.

I actually made two of these in one sitting, because I wanted to try dying one of them just to see how it would turn out! The only time I’ve ever used Rit Dye was on this project, so I’m not much of a pro and was a little bit intimidated that I would ruin it. But I think it turned out pretty good! (the color I used was teal). If I had let it soak longer, I’m guessing the fringe would have dyed darker and been closer to the same color as the linen, but I don’t mind this monochromatic look too! If you’re planning to dye yours, I recommend dying the fringe and pillow cover separately before you affix the fringe trim to the pillow.

I left the other the natural off-white linen color, because that’s the look I’m going for with our bedding situation!

The giant fluffy white pillows are ones that I re-covered using a fluffy rug back in the day, and I picked up the plush rosette pillows here (although as the weather cools down, it would be soooo cozy to have these chunky cable knit pillows instead). Anyway!

When I was in the midst of making these pillows, A Beautiful Mess blog posted a shower curtain makeover using a similar strategy with the fringe. You should check it out! {here} …great minds think alike!

UPDATE! Since making these, I found that Urban Outfitters has a similar version of these pillows too! Some of you might be relieved that you can just buy the darn thing instead of making it. Your choice!

Be sure to check out the other DIY projects we’ve done in this room by clicking on the images below!

Thanks for pinning!