Decorative Nursery Pillow

Good morning!  Today I’m sharing the sweetest little applique pillow. Perfect for decorating a nursery or kids’ room :) I have three free printable patterns – an owl, elephant and lion. You can do the applique on your sewing machine, like I did for these, or hand applique the pieces on. 

Supplies Needed:

• Free Patterns – link at the end of this post
• 12″ x 16″ pillow
• Fabric for back of pillow – cut two pieces both 13″ x 10″
• Fabric for center front of pillow – cut one piece to 11″ x 15″
• Fabric for border of pillow – cut two pieces 13″ x 2″ and two pieces 17″ x 2″
• Batting or flannel – cut one piece 13″ x 17″
• Fabric scraps for appliqued animal
• Embroidery thread or regular thread for appliqué 
• Fusible web
• Embroidery floss

* This decorative pillow is for decoration only in the nursery. The SIDS foundation recommends babies be placed in a bare crib with no pillows.  We use our pillow for decoration, on our glider, for pictures, and for playing – all under supervision :)

STEP 1:  Cut out all of your fabrics.  Using the dimensions above, cut out the fabric pieces needed.  

STEP 2:  Trace the animal pattern pieces onto the fusible web.  Make sure to trace them in reverse since the image will flip once ironed down.  Once you have traced the pieces, iron them onto your fabric scraps and then cut out the pieces.  

STEP 3:  Press the animal pieces onto the center fabric piece. Using the fusible web will help keep the animal pieces in place when you go to appliqué them.

STEP 4:  Appliqué the animal using matching thread.  After the animals were appliquéd, I went with embroidery thread and stitched the owl eyes and legs on and added eyes and a nose to the lion.

STEP 5:  Sew the border pieces to the center fabric piece to create the front of the pillow.  Start with the top and bottom pieces.  Mark in from each end at 1″ and 1.5″.  With right sides together, lay the border piece on the pillow.  It should hang off 1″ on each side.  When sewing keep your stitching between the 1.5″ marks.

Press your seams towards the border pieces.

Stitch the right and left border pieces on with right sides together.  Start your stitching where the right/left border piece meets the top/bottom piece.  Press seam allowance towards border pieces.

To create the mitered corners, bring the border pieces together (right sides together) at each corner.  Sew a diagonal line from corner to corner.  The pictures will hopefully help explain this since it can be tricky to describe!  Press corners flat.

STEP 6:  Flat line the front piece with the flannel.  I like to add a layer of flannel under the front of the pillow because it makes the pillow so much softer.  You can stitch the flannel to the front layer of the pillow very close to the edge so your stitching is in the seam allowance, or wait and sew all layers together in the next step.

STEP 7:  Sew the back pieces of the pillow to the front piece, with right sides together.  The back pieces of the pillow overlap allowing you to slip the pillow in.  Before sewing the back pieces to the front piece, finish off the ends of the pieces that will overlap.  Fold the edge under twice and top stitch.  Clip corners after sewn together.

STEP 8:  Flip inside out and insert the pillow!  All finished!!

I love how cheerful and fun these pillows are!  My little ones are just babies right now so the pillows are decoration but I think they will make perfect first pillow when they are ready :)

Download the Free File! This freebie is in my Resource Library under Sewing, Pillows. Enter your first name and email to get the password to download this file. You’ll also have a chance to sign up for my newsletter to receive fun craft tutorials, tips, updates and more FREE files to help make crafting something special and unique easier!