kitty face pillow tutorial

I've finally plucked up enough courage to write my first tutorial!  I know when I read other crafty blogs I love looking and trying their tutorials.  So it's time I share, and once I get the hang of how to do it properly for others to understand I will not be able to stop myself from writing more!

I made this kitty pillow present for a 1 year old kitty themed birthday party, it was sooo cute!

The pattern pieces are basically circles, triangles, and rectangles, it should be fairly easy finding household objects to trace things around to find these shapes.  That can be part of the fun sometimes!

 Let's begin with the face part of the kitty, I chose to make a round face, you could make an oval or triangle one too.  1. & 2.  I found a round pillow. traced around it, and cut 2 pieces making the kitty face slightly bigger than I wanted (for my seam allowance).  3. Make sure there are no pillow thieves when you are in the middle of cutting your circle out.  4. Get your top piece ready to sew eyes to.  5.  Cut out 2 white ovals, and 2 black ovals for the eyes. 6.  Dressmaking pins vs. smaller pins (quilting pins)  they are easier to use to pin smaller things.  7. Pin your eyes in place and whip stitch around with white thread.  Do the same for the black ovals on the white part of the eye. 8.  Embroider some eyebrows if you want!  9. Cut out a triangle for the nose, and stitch a mouth on under in the shape of two "J"'s back to back.

 

10. Next, cut out 2 triangles of kitty fabric and 2 triangles of contrasting fabric for the inside of the ears. 11. Pin 1 kitty fabric and 1 contrasting fabric right sides together.  12. Repeat with other set. 13. Sew from the bottom to the tip of the triangle then back down leaving the bottom open.  14.  To get nice crisp points trim away to 1/8" away from the seam right at the tip of the ear.  15.  Turn inside out and pin contrasting fabric side down to the face.

16.  Measure around the face to know how long your gusset will be.  Mine was 51" so I added 1" for seam allowance.  I ended up cutting a piece measuring 52"x 3". 17-19. Pin and sew your gusset to the circle face easing the fabric in as necessary.  20.  When you come back the the start of the gusset, come as close as you can to the start.  Backstich and take it out of the machine. 22. (oops no 21.) stitch the gusset closed creating a continuous piece. Trim off excess.  If you are more accurate in your measuring you will not have to trim off any excess, and easing the gusset in will be easier! 23. Sew the gusset seam down.  Repeat steps 17-19 sewing the back side of the kitty face to the other edge of the gusset. I finished mine off by serging but that isn't necessary.  24. Clip the inside where the ears are so the circle can be nice and round and not all bunched up (due to thicker fabric) 25.  Make sure you leave an opening so you turn the pillow inside out and stuff your kitty!  Stuff the pillow until the face is nice and smooth.  Sew the opening shut by using a blind stitch, or a whip stitch.

Ta-da!  Place in a cozy corner and watch your little ones enjoy!