Mini Sewing Tutorial: Sweet Dreams Pillow for Toddlers

Please do not make this pillow for babies/infants. We all know that the pillows ( or any loose bedding) pose a risk to babies. These pillows are meant only for toddlers and older kids. 

 

Ever since the munchkin started going to the daycare there has been a war at sleeptime. I have seen cold war, stealth mode operations, coercion, bribery, threats, theft and outright combat in person.The object under dispute - My husband's pillow. Munchkin would boldly claim it as hers as soon as she gets into the bedroom and in fact it is the biggest draw for her to get to sleep. By the time hubby knows it, his pillow is already gone. If my daughter is awake at the time, they both try to assert their ownership. While this all makes for a very amusing sleep time drama, I realized that it may not be good for munchkin's back to sleep on an adult pillow. We both ( Me and Hubby) arrived at the conclusion that since she has picked up this habit of using a pillow at her daycare, we better get her a daycare sized pillow to sleep on.

Does your munchkin need a pillow too? Here's how I made this:


Supplies:


Flannel for the body ( 12.5 inches long and 42 inches wide)
Co-ordinating fabric for a contrasting panel ( 12.5 inches long and 4 inches wide)
Ribbon for embellishing (half yard) I used a satin ribbon but I think grosgrain would be better.
Batting or polyfill


1.

Cut the main piece into a rectangle of 12.5 inch ( length) X 42 inches ( width)

2.

Cut the contrasting piece 12.5 inch ( length) X 4 inch


3.

Sew the contrasting panel about 3 inches away from the edge of main piece. Sew it with the longest stitch and don't worry about finishing the edges. You're in effect basting the piece to the main fabric. It will be finished by the ribbon.


4.

Sew the ribbon over the edges of contrasting panel. Make sure you cover the raw edges with the ribbon. You will have to sew two seams on each ribbon. One along either edge. Go slow and steady here.


5.

Now fold the main fabric in half along the width and sew along all three open sides. Leave an opening of 5 - 7 inches in the center of the bottom seam. 

This is where munchkin got too excited about my sewing machine and started trying really hard to get to it...really hard. So in all the chaos that ensued I forgot to take picture of the next steps. So I will just explain them in text. Good thing they are very easy to do.


6. Snip off the corners of this rectangle so you have sharp corners when you turn out. Now turn out, poke the corners out with a pencil.

7. Fill fibrefill or batting inside the pillowform until it becomes as fat as you want it. For the little one, I kept it pretty thin because I don't want her sleeping on very high pillow, but if you're making this for older kids, you may want to stuff it well. IF you're using batting like me, this step may take a while, because you have to spread the layers evenly.

8. Slip-stitch the opening shut.

Bye bye pillow fight! Hello sweet dreams!
The toddler loves her pillow and even carried it to her bed last night by herself.

PS: If I didn't have a really active toddler running with my sewing supplies and playing orchestra on my serger, I would have considered adding the yellow flowers from the main fabric on to the contrasting panel, like I did here. Or I might have considered cutting out her initials in felt and use as appliques, but I guess I really wanted the pillow.