December 22 - Caroline Lau
"Every year I like to make something homemade for the grandparents featuring the hand outlines of the kids.
This year we decided to make fleece/felt pillows!
What you will need.
- Fleece (no pilling) - 2 colors - we used grey for the pillow and white for the hand outlines
- Felt (or fleece) -1 for the heart
- Sewing Machine and Thread
- Needle and Thread
- Scissors/ Rotary Cutter and Board
- Maya Road Vintage Wooden Button (large)
- Paper/Pencil
- Maya Road Pins (for pinning the hands to the pillow)
- Polyfil
Instructions:
- Trace hands on the paper. Cut out pattern.
- Cut out the hands from the fleece (we used white)
- Decide the size of the pillow you want to make. Size will depend on the hand sizes of your kiddos. Our pillow is about 10" x 18" - so we cut the grey fleece at 10.5" x 18.5" - 2 pieces)
- Pin the hands to the center front of the pillow - decide how you want the hands to face and also where you want the heart.
- Cut out a heart; ours was done free hand.
- Sew the hands and heart to the front of the pillow using a fine straight stitch on the machine.
- Facing both pieces of the grey fleece together, leave a 4" opening and then sew around the edge of the pillow with a 0.25" seam allowance.
- Trim excess fleece after you are done sewing.
- Flip the pillow right side out. Check the seams and the hands/heart.
- Add the wooden button sewn on the heart as shown.
- Stuff pillow (you can get your kiddos to help if they are big enough) until it is full. Noah used an unsharpened pencil to stuff the pillow and get into the nooks and crannies.
- When you are satisfied, sew the pillow closed.
You are done!
Optional: create a patch with some extra fleece and needle and thread and sew the patch in the lower back corner so you can commemorate the date the pillow was made.
Follow Caroline Lau at http://mayaroad.typepad.com/mayaroad/ and the Maya Road Design Team at http://mayaroad.typepad.com/dt/
