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:
Unknown says
April 29, 2015 at 1:18 PMWhere 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!
ananda says
May 1, 2015 at 4:42 AMhi jamie! these are so precious! i really like the details of the checker trim and the pompoms (crazy about pompoms!!), beautiful gifts!! xo
jcprime1 says
May 3, 2015 at 1:53 PMThe gold pleather is from Joann's.
Karin says
May 7, 2015 at 3:19 PMLove 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.
Julie Spear says
March 24, 2016 at 1:06 AMI 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!!