How to make simple personalized pillows. A sewing project that makes a great gift and pretty decor too!
In case you’re wondering I made these pillows for my friend Jen at The House of Wood as a thank you gift. She has two little ones so I made one pillow for her daughter and one for her son.
Unknowingly her daughter’s pillow fits right in on her cuter than cute diy toddler bed, look below!
I do love to sew (and build and paint) so whenever I can make something for others it’s so much more meaningful than going out and buying at a retail store.
I used a white blanket as the base for these pillows but you could use any fabric. Evie’s pillow has gold pleather letters and bright pink pom pom trim.
For Liam I choose a more masculine brown leather with blue and white gingham piping.
These pillow covers are made to fit the Ikea Fjadrar insert. The finished size is 26″w x 16″h.
How to make a personalized pillow:
Step 1: Print out the letters. I used Franklin Gothic Medium font at 750 point. Cut out letters.
Step 2: Place letters on wrong side of fabric/leather, be sure letter is backwards. You could trace with a white pencil then cut out. DO NOT PIN leather. The pins will leave a hole.
Step 3: Cut out 2 blanket pieces 27″ x 17″. Apple double stick tape to back of letters.
Position letters in center of front blanket piece and press tape in place.
Step 4: Straight stitch letters in place 1/8″ from edge.
Step 5: Sew pom pom trim in place 1/2″ from raw edge of front blanket piece.
Piping: Cut 1 1/2″ bias strips. Sew strips together to make one long piece about 90″ long.
Use 3/8″ cotton cording and a zipper foot to wrap binding around cord then stitch shut.
Sew binding to pillow front same as Step 5 above.
Step 6: Place back blanket piece on top of front and sew together leaving about 16″ open at center bottom.
Above is the opening left for the zipper. I also trimmed the corners.
Step 7: Pin and sew the zipper in place.
Turn right side out and insert pillow form.
For more diy pillow ideas check out these posts:
Where do you get gold pleather? Is it sold in the fabric section somewhere? I love everything that you do. I get so excited when I get an email knowing that you have created something else!
hi jamie! these are so precious! i really like the details of the checker trim and the pompoms (crazy about pompoms!!), beautiful gifts!! xo
The gold pleather is from Joann's.
Love these! Thanks for sharing details, like the font you used. Sometimes that is where I get stuck: looking through a pile of fonts for what I want to use.
I don't know how I missed these before, I thought I had looked through your sewing projects A-Z (get it??) I just saw this on House of Wood (my other fav builder gal), and here they are!!! I started reading your blog a LONG time ago for the sewing projects, but now I have started some wood-working and building, and now you have the most awesome building tutorials too! THANKS so much, for all of that!!! I really do love following along, I should send you some photos of projects you have inspired me to make!!