Looking for a fun project to fill those extra hours??

How about making a pillow in the shape of a jelly bean?

Kayla created the jelly bean pillow pattern to be able to make six different animals:  a kitten, puppy, fox, raccoon, panda, or husky. It’s something you can make (or do) with someone you love.  Click here for the link to the downloadable version of the pattern.

The pillows are fairly easy to make.  In a nutshell – you applique (using a fusible web like steam-a-seam) and then topstitch, all the pieces onto the face, add the ears, the tail and the little heart on the back.  Then connect the front to the back with a gusset (just a strip of fabric).  Leave an opening so you can stuff it just the way you like it – and wa la … you have a pillow. 

Once you’ve gotten the hang of it – you can get creative … Kira and Kayla both went to Brigham Young University in Provo UT where the mascot is Cosmo the Cougar – so Kayla created Cougar pillows for Kira’s two girls.  You can download the free add on by clicking here.

If you’d like to make a pillow – I thought it might help to tell you a little about the fabrics you can use.  All of our pillows were made with Shannon Cuddle fabrics.

The kitty, the puppy and the raccoon are made all from Shannon Cuddle 3 fabrics.  The specific colors we used are on the back of the pattern cover.  It’s the easiest fabric to use and they have an amazing selection of colors.

    The cuddle fabrics definitely have a ‘nap’ – so make sure you have the nap running in the desired direction BEFORE you cut out any of the pattern pieces. We had the nap run ‘down’ each of the pattern pieces so it was easier to pet the pillow without rubbing the fur the ‘wrong way’.

The fox uses cuddle 3 fabric for everything except the mask, the forehead and the tip of the tail where we used Soft cuddle – I believe the name for it now is Luxe Cuddle – and they refer to white as ‘snow’. We love the feel and the texture of the soft cuddle fabrics and it adds more dimension to the pillow.

The panda uses white (snow) Rose cuddle as the primary fabric. If you look close it looks like small roses.  From what I understand the ‘design’ is heat set into the fabric – so we recommend that you do NOT put this fabric into the dryer as it might lose the cool texture.  If you just wash in cold water and use a high spin cycle to get as much water out as possible, then just leave it out to dry – it dries pretty fast and will stay looking new for a long time!

This might be a good time to tell you about the little heart ‘tat’ on the back.  You can you can sew all the way around the heart to attach it … OR … you can leave an opening at the top to put a treasure in … like a tooth… so the tooth fairy will know where to find it.

The fabric for the husky might be the hardest to find – we found two that we thought looked a bit like a Husky. The husky below is made from Luxe Cuddle Galaxy Smoke.   Then we used Rose cuddle on his face and his tail. The other cool fabric is called Luxe Cuddle Marble Rose Black/Silver – you’ll find it in the picture at the top of the blog on the far right.

One last tip – add a French knot to the upper corners of the black of their eyes to add a sparkle. If you look closely at the picture of the kitty, puppy and raccoon – you will notice that we forgot to put the dots in the puppy eyes – look what a difference it makes – I am thinking about using white puff paint to create the sparkle.

If you are looking for places to purchase cuddle fabric … You can go to Shannon Fabrics website and put in your zipcode and it will tell you where you can find them. Here in Vancouver, WA it is Craft Warehouse just down the street from me.  If you know what you are looking for, you can also shop online – I understand www.fabric.com has quite a selection as well.

And if you want to (need to … have to … or are ‘forced to’) stay home, but still want to make them – I just posted kits for each of the six animals up on the website.

Each of the kits includes the full color pattern for all six animals, the cutting guides for all six animals and all the fabrics that you need to create one of the animals.

If you like the little faces –  – we created a pattern using the same faces … only smaller – and turned them into a purse or a backpack – you just change the straps.

I also wanted to share a picture of Caris with her puppy pillow – she is my sister Linda’s daughters daughter – have no idea what title that should be … she was 12 when she was visiting last summer and Linda taught her how to make the pillow – nice job Caris! And look .. she has the dot in the eyes!

Choose Happy! Stay safe!

Sheila