Finding Fifth: Little Pocket Pillow Case

Piggy in a Pocket

This is a very sweet little project and I highly recommend checking out some of the ones made in the Zakka Style Sew Along Flickr group. All of the teddies are cute and some of them are in photos with their new owners.

Now my mum gave Frances the softest Gund pink piggy when she was a newborn. Piggy Pinktail is still Fran's favourite bed pal and he has been through the wash a bout 5 times! He's rough, scraggly and stained by blue texta but he is 'real'.

So with this project I decided NOT to make the matching teddy but rather a larger pocket pillow for Piggy to slumber next to my daughter.

Fabric

Frances helped me choose some pin, orange and green 4" squares from the stash. I think most of these are Amy Butler prints. The apples and feathers prints were just from the scrap box.

Cutting and Sewing

I was determined to make the diamonds despite my instincts telling me that they were going to be a lot of work to cut, sew and match up the points. I had thought about somehow using paper as a foundation but decided that making strips might work instead.

I think that they would do so IF the strips were longer than my 4" but as you can see I had mixed results.

Failures

My diamonds were not sewn up correctly and I could not be bothered unpicking titchy seams so I ditched my diamonds and sewed up the remaining 2" strips into a rectangle.

I had planned on using this cute 'Hello Kitty' gingham fabric for the back of the pillow and also to line the pocket, but I ironed it with a hot iron and it melted and shrank. I hate fabric like that! So I decided to stick with Kona cotton in 'snow'.

Changes

From this point I kind of abandoned the pattern in the book and improvised my own version.

Size - I see no use in another small toddler pillow (we have about 4 of these from Preschool days) so I made it regular size at 37" x 20".

Pocket - I made the pocket much larger to fit Piggy. It is 10" x 7". I added batting and interfacing for strength and then sewed the right sides together and turned right way out.

Quilting - I added quilting in diamond shapes to make up for the earlier loss.

Piping - I don't know what piping cord is, so I made a narrow 1" strip from scraps and sewed that in half to use instead.

I am so happy with the results. I finished it close to midnight and so Fran was fast asleep when I put it under her head. I whispered to her that I had finished 'Piggy's Pocket pillow' and she promptly snuggled up to him. Awwwwww!