Fall Project Week- Project #5 Pocket Pillow with Embroidery from the Crafting Fiend

Hi, I’m Jen and I blog over at The Crafting Fiend and would love for you to come and visit me and follow if you feel so inclined :). I haven’t been blogging for very long and I only started sewing in December of 2010! I like to think I’m not too shabby for a beginner. I am a stay at home mom to my one year old daughter who is the inspiration for the majority of my projects and I have a insanely charming and handsome husband who rocks dimples and a British accent (for real, he’s from Britain) and he inspires all the mushy projects. (He’s also very craft-y. Seriously, he made me a mini puppet stage with changing backgrounds and working lights for an engagement present)

Fall time reminds me of snuggling up and watching movies, apple cider, and other generally cozy things such as pillows.

Today I want to show you how to make a pocket pillow with a fun embroidered detail on the front and a little dolly for the pocket. I LOVE adding details to the projects I make my daughter and she is just starting to love her dollies! I’ve also uploaded the pattern for the embroider and the dolly for you – Enjoy! (personal use only please)

You will need:

Main fabric
Pocket fabric
Heat and bond & a scrap of fabric for the bird
2 charms or charm size fabric for the dolly
other usual sewing stoofs.
The pattern

To start you will need a main fabric and a pocket fabric.

From the main fabric cut one 15″x15″ square and 2 15″x 10″ rectangles

From the pocket fabric cute one 15″x7″ rectangle (although, to be honest I cute mine 16″x7″)

On your main front piece figure out where you want to do your embroidery and transfer the image to the fabric. I used plain old graphite transfer paper (lightly tracing my image so the lines wouldn’t show after a wash)

You will also need to heat and bond some fabric and then cut out the bird and iron that to the main pillow fabric.

Embroider on the design. I did a simple back stitch for the entire project (just learning embroidery). Then stitch around your bird (you can do it by hand if you want, but I used my machine just to keep things simple)

Now do a double fold hem on your pocket piece along the top edge and then pin it onto your main fabric (I left mine a bit loose on purpose so it would fit the dolly easily). Sew a line up the center of your pocket so you will have 2 pockets

Now double fold hem your two back pieces and then place onto the main pillow&pocket. When you pin it be sure your pocket stays in place and your back pieces will go over each other at the center by a few inches.

Sew all around your square (be sure to catch all the layers and make sure the pocket and back pieces don’t get folded under while sewing) you will turn out by the open back pieces. Here you can see the overlap:

and that is your pillow done! Great work btw 🙂

Now start working on your dolly. I used 2 charms. Stitch the face onto the body by way of sewing on the hair (as seen below) and then stitch with matching thread the face part onto the body as well so it stays down.

In this next photo you can see how the face is stitched on. Pin your front and back, right sides together, and then sew around leaving a small 2 inch part un-sewn along the bottom .

Turn the doll out, stuff it, and then sew that hole closed. I machine stitched it but you could also be fancy and blind stitch it.

Isn’t the finished dolly cute!

Now put that dolly in the pocket pillow and let your girl have fun discovering it!

Sitting on the pillow is also a fun thing to do while playing with the dolly.

And that is how to make a embroidered pocket pillow with dolly. Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and the patterns and I hope to see you over at The Crafting Fiend!