Circle time booty pillow

I am happy to say i am officially up and running, too bad my computer is not and i have to post this on my Samsung!

My first post is a quick and simple circle time pillow. My oldest started preschool this year. I have some friends that are brilliant and we all got together to do our own preschool. It is very cost effective and gets the job done. During the month of October, preschool is at my house.  I can't ever just let things be simple of course, and i had some cute fleece fabric i had no idea what i was going to use it for.  So i decided to make some pillows for the kids to sit on for circle time. 







After stuffing them, i realized they would have been just fine without filling them, but i thought they turned out pretty cute either way. Due to my lack of choices in fabric, i decided to add each child's initial to the pillow since they are all learning to recognize the alphabet.  Once preschool is over for the year they can take their own pillow home with them.

I made 6, we have 5 preschool kids total and i had to make an extra one, not only as my trial run, but also so that my 18mo old wouldn't feel left out! The first one i made was a tad smaller than the others, so it works great for my little dude.

Supplies:
Fabric - i used fleece, it works perfect since it doesn't fray
Coordinating thread - for sewing the pillow together and the applique on
Old t shirt- used for the applique initials
Optional Embroidery Thread - you can also sew on the applique with this instead of typical thread, i didn't have any on hand.

First, use your cute kid for sizing of the pillow.  My son at one point said, "now what do you want me to do with my booty mommy?"  So...I asked him to shake it.  I'm pretty sure I was the only onw shaking my booty though sadly.  Anyway, I had him sit in a bowl of mine, salad to be exact and it was a great fit.  Although I added about 1/2 an inch around for seam allowance and it was perfect.

I did not take pictures of that process, but all I did was trace around the bowl and cut about 1/2 wider than my line.  I use two circles to make one booty pillow, so use the fabric folded in half like it is on the bolt at the fabric store and just cut through both layers.  It doesn't need to be perfect, that is what I love about these pillows.  The preschoolers are an easy to please consumer.

You have two options at this point, you can take one circle and applique your letter then sew the two circles together or you can do what I did and do the following:  Pin the pieces together so you don't end up all wonky when you sew.  I sewed a 3/8" seam all around my circle leaving about 3" open for stuffing.  If you don't want to stuff then just finish the circle all the way around.

If you are filling the pillow, go ahead and stuff it.  I used fiber fill I had in my collection from something else I made (actually it was these)  it was a dense and not soft polyester fiber and when I ran out I bought  a silky soft one by mistake and ended up with some of that in my final pillow mixed with the stiff stuff.  Make sure you fill all of them with same fiber fill.  I would recommend the silky soft stuff since it is a pillow and all.  I filled till I had a nice flat but soft pillow, but it is entirely up to you how full you want them.

Once stuffed, I pinned my open 3" and sewed them closed, make sure you don't forget to back stitch everytime you stop sewing!  At this point originally I was going to be done which is why I did not applique first.  However, I don't feel it was any harder to do it after the pillow is formed.

To do the applique, there are about a million options out there, I do not have any fancy cutting machine and like I said my computer is not liking me so I couldn't just print a letter off word so I opted for my free hand abilities, which I might add have gotten better as I have sewn more.  Practice makes perfect, although perfect I am not.  I drew out a basic and then kind of got an idea for the dimensions.  My letters filled a 3"x3" square approx. and they were about 6/8" in width if that makes sense.  The "B" I made did not fill to 3x3, it looked very weird that way so it 3" tall but not wide.  I drew the letter out on my T-shirt fabric which was an old shirt of mine backwards so when flipped over to sew you couldn't see the pen marks and it was the right way.



Once the applique is cut out, sew away.  Like I said, you can use embroidery thread or just normal all purpose thread, which is what I used.  The B's I did a little different and had two colors of thread together to add a little added character to my letter.  Hard to see the difference but again no fancy camera in my bag of tricks yet either.  I used girly thread colors for the girls letters and boy colored thread for the boys.

Funny side story, when I was kid my colors all had genders and I used to marry them.  Red was the only one that was sometimes a girl and sometimes a boy though.

Anyway, make sure your thread is several times knotted at the end so that it does not pull through.  This part actually was a bit easier doing after the pillow is stuffed because it gave a little more for the thread to anchor into.  By trial and error I found it best to poke through the pillow first not the letter, for the reason I just mentioned and when you come up then go through the letter.  You'll just keep weaving up and down, the length of your stitch is all up to you, just try to make them somewhat even.  When you are done tie off the end.  Again, through trial and error I found it best to end on a down and come out between the pillow and applique and then thread through the pillow (making sure you hide this thread through under your letter as best you can and tie off).

And there you have it.  A circle time booty pillow!  And here is my little preschooler watching George as usual with his pillow which he loves.  The enthusiasm wasn't there... he just woke up from a nap.