How to Sew a Pillow

As you may have heard by now, the girl started kindergarten this year. It’s a whole new world in a lot of different ways, and they try to make things a little easier during the transition time by having “rest time” part of the year in lieu of a nap.

Because there are lots of kids and not a lot of storage space, they’re allowed to bring a towel to lay on and a small pillow for rest time.

The first week the girl had a travel pillow that is small, but still gigantic when trying to fit it in a little cubby tub. So over the weekend I decided to make her a smaller one.

I used scraps from other projects, didn’t measure or iron anything, and was done with the whole thing in less than 20 minutes (including taking pictures). The actual sewing probably took about five minutes. My kind of project.

What You’ll Need

• Scrap fabric: mine is part of a couple of receiving blankets left over from her receiving blanket blanket; you can make a pillow any size you want but mine came out about 18 inches long by 9 inches wide based on the pieces of fabric I had
• Stuffing: I used some random polyfill stuffing, you only need a couple of handfuls depending on the size of your pillow
• Sewing machine and thread (I used what was already in the machine), as well as a hand-sewing needle and scissors

What You’ll Do

1. Cut your fabric down to whatever size you need.
2. Place pieces right sides together and sew around three sides and all but a few inches of the fourth side with the sewing machine (or do it all by hand if you want).
3. Flip the case right sides out and stuff lightly with stuffing.
4. Hand-sew the remaining seam, folding the raw edges to the inside as you go.

That’s it! Simple, right? Now you know how to sew a pillow. And now the girl has a sweet, smaller (and machine washable) pillow that fits in her cubby better and was made by me, which is always nice.

Have you done any quick projects lately? They’re so gratifying! I’d love to hear what you’re working on.