Latch Hook Rug Pillow

We all have those projects lurking in the sewing room that never seem to actually get finished.   One of mine was a latch hook rug.  The latch hook part has been done for nearly a year, but I've never done anything more with it.  There's a few things you can do with the rugs, like making them into wall hangings or decorative throw pillows.  I chose the pillow route.

The first thing is to select a suitable backing material.  A heavy fabric works best and I chose a black duck canvas.  It works well with the black in the rug.

The backing material needs to be machine stitched to the rug all the way around, which means either a zipper or overlapping panels needs to be used.  I cut pieces of the canvas so that they would overlap by about 6" and have a 1" seam allowance for the rug to canvas seam.  The overlapping edges of the panels need to be finished first.  Then, the whole back of the pillow is basted together.  Here's the pillow back laid over the rug.

It's necessary to trip excess canvas from the rug.  Leave about 1" of canvas all around.

The rug and back can be sewn together with a wide stitch.  I used a three step zig-zag.  The wide stitch helps catch more threads in the mostly open rug canvas.  Be careful to sew very close to the yarns without catching them in the seam.

The finished pillow is 14 x 20, definitely not a size where you can get a pre-made pillow form.  I made a pillow in the right size with polyester-cotton broadcloth left over from a different project and poly fiber fill.  

To finish the project, just insert the stuffed pillow into the rug cover.  Whew!  That's one more project out of my sewing room and out doing something useful.