When I found out I'd be going to Ithaca, I had no time to run home and grab my travel pillow that I bring with me. Its technically a camping pillow that is full of memory foam that expands (usually it sits rolled up in the corner of my garage with all my camping equipment). Its nice and soft and the only way I can sleep while cramped up on a Greyhound bus.
Looks like this:
and I was not going to REI and paying for another one.
I resolved to make one. I had some awesome flannel that I didn't know what to do with yet (as with half of the things I own).
I knew this would be the perfect project.
A small travel pillow with a tie on one corner so that I could tie it to my backpack while traveling.
First, I made the pillow itself.
I had some scrap jersey cotton from a tshirt quilt that I am making, and used that to make the pillow.
Jersey fabric is good for this because it stretches, and that meant I could over stuff the pillow, but it would still be soft and squishy.
This was a square, which I sewed three sides of, and then 2/3 of the 4th side, basically so there was an opening i could use to stuff the pillow.
Now, usually, when making a plain pillow, you sew the fabring RSF (Right Sides Facing- this means that you put the colorful sides of the fabri together, sew it, then turn it inside out. What this does is hides all the ugly seams and threads on the inside). However, because I was going to cover it with a case (flannel is nice and soft, and if it got dirty I could wash it), I didn't really care too much.
So after stuffing it, I sewed it up and set to work on the case.
I bought this wonderful flannel fabric with dinosaurs on it.
When I bought it, I had no idea what I could/would do with it.
[yes, yes, I'm an impulse buyer and a hoarder, call TLC]
but c'mon, they're dinosaurs!
so anyways, I dont believe in measuring tapes, [read: have 4 or five and can never find them and then get impatient]
so instead of measuring, I held the (still unstuffed) pillow against the fabric, and cut out the height and then 2 and 1/2 times the length.
then i folded it to make the case.
remember how i said you have to do nice things inside out?
so the pillow case before sewing looked like this:
(please excuse the glare)
anyways, you can see that the pillowcase is inside out with 1/2 extra facing up like that.
This is so when I turn it inside out, that extra 1/2 will work as a lip to catch the pillow and I wont have to sew in buttons or Velcro, but the pillow can come out so that I can throw the case in the wash if I am in so inclined.
before I sewed this all together, I made a small string to attach to one corner, so that I could tie it to my backpack and not lose it [an ironic statement, as I've already lost it somewhere in Dillingham].
what you can sort of see here is that I've folded it in half, and then in half again.
good little sewers (people who sew, not the drainage system) [not me, on both accounts!] actually IRON things before they sew them. But I walk on the wild side [read: didnt have an iron until last week, dont actually follow the rules]
so you wont see any sharp corners, and thus its a little [lot] crooked.
whatever. its not a gift.
this was sewn into the corner, with the strings facing inside, so that when i flipped it, they were on the outside.
[yes, ive done that the wrong way HUNDREDS of times. do i pin things and then flip them to see if its right? Of course not.]
so when the pillow is stuffed and the case is on, it looks like this:
So yeah, it was a life saver for the way to ithaca, (1am bus ride to NYC)
but now ive lost it. so well see what happens on the way home, thankfully that will be in daylight.
