DIY Cloud Pillow

This is one post in a series of DIY projects I have put together which show some of the things I have been doing to firstly, get Sophie's nursery together, and secondly, distract myself during the last couple of weeks of pregnancy...
I hope you enjoy them!

So in our wee nursery, we have a series of Ikea Kallax shelves set up underneath a window, kind of like a makeshift bay window. We wanted a nice wee spot which was functional, to hold all Sophie's books, and as extra space for people to sit in the nursery. We also wanted it to be nice, cosy and aesthetically pleasing. I bought a couple of cushions from Moorea Seal in the States before we left, and we got a cute wee Owl pillow from Gingiber on Etsy. Since then, I have been brainstorming different ideas for some home made ones.

Before I make anything, I tend to spend ages searching the net so see what other people might have created. The ones I fell for the most are a variation on a cloud pillow which is pretty popular on Pinterest at the moment. I just kind of ran with how I thought it might work.

Here is how it all went down... 
ps. I am pretty happy with the results!

I happened to have some random floral fabrics in my sewing box, so I used them for the first two pillows. Then I went and found some more for the last one. The amount of fabric you need will depend on what size you are after. Like, you could use random scraps of fabric for some smaller ones for a rattle, or you could use a little more and create a cushion for a bed, or you could make a super lovely large one, as a floor pillow for a play room.

Draw a cloud! I cannot draw to save my life, and I managed it, so I bet you can too! I think a flat bottomed cloud works best if you want it to sit up by itself (like for on a sofa), but if the cloud is for a wee rattle, toy or bed cushion, you could make it fluffy all the way around. Cut out your cloud when you are happy with the shape. When you draw, don't forget to make enough allowance for a seam, so make the cloud a little larger than the one you want to end up with.

Iron your fabric - confession - I didn't do this for the first two, as we hadn't bought one yet.. but then I got one, so I did it! And it totally looks better, especially if you are using scraps because chances are they are probably a bit wrinkled.

Fold your fabric in half, the right sides facing each other. I pinned it along the edges to make sure it didn't slip.

Put the edge of the cloud along the fold in the fabric. Pin your cloud picture to the fabric.

Cut out along the edge of the cloud, taking care to keep the shape of the cloud intact. You don't wanna lose your fluffiness!

Unpin the paper template and pin the two layers of fabric together. Discard the template. Or, keep it for another one!

Where to start sewing? I started in the middle, along the flat edge. Double back to make sure the thread won't come out later. Continue along the base of the cloud, when you get to the start of the cloud fluffs, slowly rotate the cloud to follow along the edge.

Tip! To make the cloud fluffs end "sharply" or in other words, to make the individual fluffs rounder and fluffier, make sure you sew down into the axis between fluffs quite deeply.

Continue this all the way around the cloud until you are back at the cloud base again. When you are about an inch away from the start of the stitches, finish up by doing a double back to make sure the threads wont come out.

Take scissors, and (carefully) snip into the corners of each poof to make sure they separate and looks sharp and crisp.

Nearly there!!

Using your fingers, turn the wee cloud inside out, making sure you get each cloud fluff all rounded out.

Optional - you can iron the cloud again now if you would like, to make your fluffs into lovely circular poofs.

Or. You can go ahead and... stuff that cloud! Fill the cloud one poof at a time, making sure you get a good volume of fill in. You want each little cloud arm to be rounded out and full.

When you are happy with your clouds fullness (and don't skimp, no one like a skinny cloud!) you can fold in your edges of the wee hole, and hand stitch the rest of the cloud up. There are flash stitches you can use so you won't see any thread, or you can just be a casual carole like me and use blanket stitch or use.. well I dont know what its called. A stitch stitch haha.

What do you think?? Have you made something similar? How did you make yours?

I just adore how this little experiment turned out, and I think they make a lovely addition to Sophie's reading knook. Plus it really feels good to have things you made yourself, you know?

Other ways you could mix this up:
- After you cut out the cloud, and before you stitch the two layers together, you could embroider a cute face one side, or a name, or a message.
- Along the edge of one side of the fabric, you could sew loops of ribbon to make the cloud more of a taggy toy.
- You could make a smaller one with a couple of bells inside to be used as an interactive toy for a baby.
- Very small ones could be strung up as a mobile or garland for a nursery.

DIY Loopy Luna

Hmmm... I'm not sure what this wee creation should be called.. I have a faint recollection that some people could be calling them taggy toys?? I'm not sure how something changes from a softie to something else with the addition of looped ribbons.. but anyway, I'm calling mine Loopy Luna(r). Cos well, she has loops for hair, and is rather moon like I think.

This is one of the projects I put together in week 38 of my pregnancy. It was really a time of using any craft materials I could find in my house to distract myself as much as possible! This one wasn't Pinterest inspired, rather she is based on a character from an Enid Blyton book "The Far Away Tree". The character is called Moonface. And he is a darling wee character. I wanted to make a wee softie of him for Sophie, for when we read her the book later. Then I received a bunch of cute ribbons in my Christmas parcel from Mum, so I thought, why not add some loopy loops, for baby to grasp on to. And thus, Loopy Luna was born (and he became a she). Its amazing what the pregnant mind can come up with huh?

So... Materials for this project -
- Fabric for the main body of the softie. I used a light weight white cotton, because, well, it was in my box of fabric. But you could use any colour. I liked the white for the moon, but you could make her yellow for the sun, or mix it up with some floral.
- Ribbons. I used 5 different ribbons, 2 wider ribbons, 3 thinner ribbons. I used ones with patterns, but you could combine plain and patterned. I quite like the colour combination of mine, especially since my base fabric was white and I think it needed brightening up.
- Embroidery thread. Now, maybe its because I am from a very Scottish and thrifty family, but I always keep my leftover threads when I do cross stitch projects. So I just used different coordinating colours that I had left over.
- Embroidery hoop - this was super helpful for the embroidery part (duh) and also for making her a good circle shape without using a template.
Oh and I don't know if I could have done this without a sewing machine. I'm gonna say that I may have gone mad trying to hand sew this thing.

How it all went down -

Iron your fabric. It always looks better that way (I didn't until near the end, and it totally made it better).

Place your white fabric into your embroidery hoop. Cut out a square of fabric around the hoop, make the overall size about an inch or two bigger than the embroidery hoop you have. I used my hoop size as a basis for the size of the softie.

Decide what personality you would like your softie to have. I wanted Luna to be lovely and friendly. With happy cheeks. Once you know what you want her to be like, draw it on! I have said many times how bad I am at drawing, but even I managed a smile, some cheeks and some wee eyelashes. If you have a fabric safe pen, you could use that, but I just used an ordinary pencil.

Next is embroidery time.. But don't worry. Its just back stitch, the easiest stitch that can be. I started stitching her eyes, splitting the length of one eyelash into 3 stitches. That set the stage for the size of each stitch. Continue stitching until you finish her face.

Sophie and I stitching Luna's smile.

Trim the edge of the fabric so that the edge runs along the edge of the embroidery hoop (you will end up with a circular piece of fabric the same size as your hoop). Remove the fabric from the hoop. Pin this onto the rest of your fabric, to use it as a template to get another circle the same size. Cut out the second circle.

Once you are happy with her face, you need to organise the ribbons. I decided to do a pattern with five ribbons, repeated each time. I found the easiest way to do it was to think of her circular face as a clock and divided it up roughly that way. To make the loops safe for wee one, make sure you don't make them so long that she could choke or anything. That would not be good. I used 10 cm length ribbons. These are then folded in half, and with the seam allowance, mean that the loops end up being a little over 4 cm long.

So. This part confused me. And I had no instructions, so I will be honest, I did have to seriously work through the baby brain to get this part done. I will try and explain it as clearly as possible.. Lets see.

Lay your fabric down, face side up. Arrange the ribbons around the fabric in the spot you want each one at, and with the spacing you want. Take a piece of ribbon. Double the ribbon over so that it is folded in half. Take a pin and pin it to the edge of the fabric. You want the loop to be laying so that it sits above the face, rather than out way from the face. Continue this the whole way around her face. I used lots of ribbons so this took ages, obviously it will vary with the amount you use.

Now. Using a sewing machine, stitch around the outside circumference of the face. Double back at the start to make sure you don't have any thread pull out. Work slowly to make sure you don't get a pin stuck in the machine, you also don't want to come away from the edge effectively "unlooping" the loops.

Okay, still with me? Take your face, which should now have a bunch of ribbons stitched around the outside, and take the other piece of fabric you have. Line the outer edges up and pin them together, face side inside the package of cloth.

Turn the fabric over, so that the back of the face is facing you. You should be able to see the circular pattern of stitches which are holding in the ribbons (which are on the inside) of the fabric right now.

Start stitching the two layers together, making sure the seam is further into the circle than the seam holding the ribbons in. That is to say, when you turn it the right way in, you want the ribbons to be within a seam, not hanging out higgledypiggledy. You know? Lol this is so hard to explain. I hope it makes sense.

Continue stitching the two layers together until you get to about an inch away from where you started. Double back to make sure your threads don't come loose when you turn it the right way in.

Turn the softie the right way out. Here's how she might look!

Fill your softie lovely and full and chubby, chub out those cheeks!

When you are content with her filling, hand stitch the last wee gap... And she's all done!!

What do you think? Does it make sense? Do you have any questions?
I was so happy with how she turned out, especially since I didn't have a pattern, and I did have some intense baby brain at the time haha. Are you an Enid Blyton fan? What childhood favourite would you make into a softie if you could?

The last 20 weeks - In 5 Words or less.

Hmmmm. Is this doable? We shall see. It's almost like those life lately posts on crack.


September.
Baby moon. Two sweet words. A modern construct in a modern world. Regardless of your thoughts on a baby moon. We had saved my most anticipated trip in the States for fall of 2014. And we happened to be pregnant, so baby moon it became.
In short: Houston to Vancouver. Ferry to Victoria. Ferry to Seattle. Drive to Portland via Mount St Helens. Drive to Crater Lake via Columbia River Gorge. Drive to the Pacific. Then, casually trot down to San Fran. And let me just say, it was my favorite trip in the States. There will be so many Travel Thursdays coming from that trip.

So much happniess. Victoria is beautiful.

Crater Lake. There are actually no words.

Latourell Falls. One of so many beautiful spots along the gorge.

Two Baby showers!
So spoiled. A lovely afternoon tea at work. And a surprise shower and early thanksgiving from our adopted Texan family. We are so blessed to have a family a world away from our home.

Organizing a move in your Third Trimester.
Yeah, nah. Don't do it. Instead, enjoy little things. Like football. And donuts. This was a time of making the most of some of the things I love about America. Like football. And donuts.

Like donuts.

And football.

Little Man!
Our Texan family has been going through the pregnancy journey with us. And the bestest news... Little man decided to come two weeks early so we got to meet him! And spend a week with him. So happy and blessed to meet him.

Houston to Dubai. Dubai to Perth.
All I can say is that the other side of the world really is, the other side of the world. So far. So, so far. But having best friends waiting for you at the other end is rad. With a capital R.

Dude, we are kind of homeless.
Well, not really I suppose. We have a hotel for a month. But this baby mama has been waiting to nest for 7 months. Someone get me a house. Stat.

Wow. 29.
Is it me or did 29 years go pretty fast? Hmmm. Pretty happy about the way my 29th year has gone. Let's see how year 30 will be!

Sophie got in some great Happy Birthday kicks.

The view from my birthday lunch. I don't hate it here, not at all.

We have a house! And a thermomix!
Cue cleaning, building idea furniture, trips to the department store, trying to rest but really sucking at it, listening to the house noises, wondering whether we will be murdered or if it's just the house, scrubbing the bath, taking baths, chatting to Sophie, seeing our lovely friends, hoping for the temperatures not too get too high, being happy when temperatures stayed under 35, sulking when they got higher. And oh the thermomix. So much happiness in one machine.

Nesting.
It's like all the things I imagined and pinned and plotted suddenly started coming to life. So much relief, glee, excitement and aqua. I believe its a pregnancy thing.Can't wait to do a "nursery tour" and share where I got all the pretty things from.

I just love her Moses Basket.

This makes me happy.

Yes. This Ikea hack is my favorite thing ever.

Baby Shower.
I really have the bestest friends. So lucky. So lovely. Vintage woodland themed amazingness.

The origami garland.

Liz makes the cutest cupcakes.

Christmas!
The lead up to Christmas was mostly spent distracting myself from the upcoming delivery. So I made lots of Christmas decorations and tried to rest up. Christmas away from home is always hard. I was up anyway so I skyped my family at 4 am so I could watch my wee nephew open his presents. Totally worth it! Christmas Day itself was spent with our dear friends celebrating a special ladies birthday and enjoying the sunshine.

These lovely angels were a Pinterest win indeed.

You know when you nail something that you didn't have a pattern for? Very stoked!

Our lovely treeling.

Garland wall in all its loveliness.

Baby watch - two solid weeks of contractions mean we are just waiting for her to pop out (that's totally how it works right?). One day they will last more than a few hours and then it will be game on. For now it's a perching on the birth ball and waiting kind of game.

New Years!
Party animals. Well except not! More resting and wondering if all these contractions would lead to a baby born at 12:01 on January first. Nope! She's still there.

So that's us, all up to date! Its been lovely catching up with you guys! And I'm sorry. I guess I totally went over the 5 word mark.