day 257: pyjama pillow

the finished pyjama stash pillow!

day 257 and after my mammoth day at the sewing machine yesterday i wanted an easy creation for today.  i found this pj pillow tutorial by virginia of gingercake on prudent baby and thought the concept was fantastic.  i pinned it to my sewing diy board and thought one of these pillows for ben to stash his pj's in would be perfect because he is forever losing his jammies down the back of his bed.

i can't sew circles and while i absolutely adore the one made by virginia, i needed to create something that used straight lines!  i decided a square overlapped pillow would do the job nicely and it sounded easy enough for me to attempt today.  i have added a few more pictures than i normally would of the process below to show you how i made a square one.  just in case you too were scared of sewing circles and wanted to make a square one!

the pillow uses one piece of fabric and one piece of quilters batting and that's it for what you need bar the sewing machine.  as this is for a ten year old boy's pj's i went with an elongated size.  if it was square i figured the pillow would flop down too much so i went with a low rectangle shape. i also added in the batting so that if their weren't pj's inside the pillow would still hold it's shape.

all that is required for today's creation.

start by folding over and then folding over again along the shortest side of the fabric.

iron the folds in place so you have a good overlap, then measure your batting to fit.  make sure you cut your batting 1/2" narrower than the width of the fabric ...

... the reason you want your batting smaller is so you don't sew it in the first seam of your french seams, this means when you turn it inside out your batting won't cause any bulkiness.  it's at this point you realise my sewing knowledge is limited but that the photos help you figure out what i am trying to say ;)

its during the second sewing of the french side seams that you sew the backing in place.

turn out so you have the right side out, the batting should now be sewn in place with the side seams and you are finished

the completed pillow stuffed with the boy peeps pj's!

much better than trying to find the missing top or trunks down the side of his bed :)
HAPPY days, my friends, happy days!

outcome: really cool, and it looks good on ben's bed too, not to mention i will now be able to stop fishing behind his bed looking for missing pj parts!  i love when a creation is pretty to look at, easy to make, and has a useful purpose ... they are definitely my favourite kind!

sincere thanks to virginia of gingercake for the wonderful concept AND the tutorial is really indepth and would be easy to follow if you are into sewing circles!  as for prudent baby let me just tell you, the tutorials and all they offer are completely addictive ... there were so many projects i wanted to try, i didn't know where to start!