Snugglebug University: House Pillow Tutorial

To celebrate the release of my latest pattern, I thought it might be neat to publish one of the projects here on the blog. Not only is it a fun freebie, It's also a great way for you all to see a little bit of what my pattern is like.

Let's get started:

What you'll need:

•Three 16 inch pieces of fabric, one of which is white for the pillow front

•16 inch pillow form

•A black fabric marker (or permanent marker)

•Fabric scraps of lightweight fabric for applique, interfacing, plus felt scraps for the clothes backs

•Velcro fastener for attaching clothes to clothesline

•Thread for sewing machine

Print out the templates located at the bottom of this post and assemble them according to the diagram below.

If you don’t have a light box, a window will work well to hang up your template. Using a straight edge as needed, trace the pattern onto your 16 inch by 16 inch piece of white fabric using a black fabric pen.

Read the directions on your pen as for how to make your image permanent. In my case, all I had to do was iron my image.

Next, cut our the roof, heart, clothes, and bush from a lightweight fabric. Cut out an identical sized piece from fusible interfacing (Pellon Wonder Under works well). Follow the directions for using fusible interfacing to attach your fabric pieces to your house base.

After you have ironed on your pieces with fusible interfacing, you’ll need to stitch around the edges to secure in place. You can either use a sewing machine to stitch a normal running stitch around the edge of the adhered cotton fabric, or you can do a satin zig zag stitch.

In order to make the pillow, you’re going to need three 16 inch x 16 inch squares of fabric to cover your 16 inch pillow form. Now you might be wondering why you don’t add a little bit around the edges since the pillow is itself 16 inches. This is actually because it looks better for the pillowcase to be tight.

Alright, let's focus on the back of pillow and back of pillow pocket for second:

Once you’ve finished the back of pillow pocket and back of pillow edge (as described above), it’s time to sew your pillow together.

Place the front of your pillow (right side down) on top of the back of pillow pocket, and back of pillow (both face up)

Alright! You’re almost done! Now it’s time to turn the pillowcase right side out and put your pillow form in! It’s also where you might sweat a little bit, when you’ve realized that you’ve sewn all four sides of your front. Don’t worry though! Since you didn’t incorporate the bottom of the pillow back into the seam, you’ll be able to lift it up to squeeze in the pillow form.

Once you’re done stuffing in your pillow, just straighten out the pillow back (by inserting your hand into the back pocket.) Now you have a nice place to store your dolls, and it’s easy to take the cover off if you need to clean it!