Pillows are one of the easiest projects out there. The perfect beginner project! The options for shape, size, and use are endless! This one is designed with two things in mind: it uses a fat quarter and it’s made custom for a toddler who keeps waking himself up by bumping into the head of his bed.

 

This pillow is ultra-custom, the size fits across the head of my son’s bed (crib converted to toddler bed) it’s made from fabric I designed myself with him in mind, it even includes soft tags along the sides for fidgeting.

So now for the shameless plug! This fabric is a fat quarter ordered from spoonflower, which has thousands of designs for sale by different artists and the option to make your own custom ones. I have a small but growing collection on there, including this one. All of my designs are watercolour painting converted to a digital design and most of them are tailored to the small people.

Ok, getting to the pillow!

 

The fabric I chose is The Minky, it’s super soft and the kids love it. The fat quarter of this fabric is 27” × 18” and makes a long pillow 26” long × 8.5” wide. Using a print in a different orientation, or one that wasn’t directional, would make a small pillow of 13” × 17” with the same amount of fabric.

Making the pillow

Step 1– If you’re using a fat quarter from spoonflower you’ll need to trim off the excess unprinted fabric. I left about 1cm of the white around the edge to use as my seam allowance and make the pillow as big as I could.

Step 2– To make tags for the pillow you will need to cut a few pieces of soft ribbons, I used two different thicknesses and cut three pieces for each side at about 3“ long.

 

 

Step 3– Fold the fabric in half with the right sides of the fabric together and place the tags, which are folded in half, so the part that’s going to stick out is facing inwards. You can make them any length you want, I chose to make them all the same length.

 

Pin the tags in place. I pin them to one side of the fabric first to make sure they are all lined up correctly, then place the top piece down and move the pin to the top.

 

 

Step 4- Sew around the three open sides with a 1cm seam allowance, leave a couple inches open along one of the short sides. This will be used to turn it right side out. Surge or zig zag stitch around the edges making sure to leave that space open.

 

Trim the tips off the corners to help them look sharper once it’s turned around, just be sure not to catch the main stitching.

 

 

Step 5 – Turn it right side out and top stitch the side edge without the hole in it.

Step 6 – Stuff! Stuff to your heart’s content. It’s a long pillow so it might be lumpy at first, just work the fluff by massaging it into place as you go.

 

Step 7 – When it’s as fluff filled as you want it,
 push the stuffing down enough to leave space

  to top stitch the other edge.

 

 

 

 Fold in the seam allowance of the opening and pin it, top stitch the whole side to close the seam and finish the pillow off.

 

 

 

 

That’s it! If you know what you’re doing this project can literally take minutes. If you don’t, it’s a great learning project.