Cracker Pillow

I have seen these adorable cracker pillows around Pinterest and fell in love. I was to busy with life and did not have an excuse to make it. Sewing is a great skill and I hope to help people learn it while they have fun.

Necessary

• foam piece at least 2 inches thick
• embroidery needle (needle with a low profile and small eye/hole)
• fabric with some stretch (I chose fleece)
• embroidery floss of the same color (I tried thread for the shaping and it breaks)
• scissors

Optional

• pins (not necessary but helpful)
• sewing machine
• thread to use the sewing machine (you can just use embroidery floss for the entirety)
• thimble

The picture I drew helps explain what I did actually.

I first cut out the rectangle laying it so it was its width away from the edge on both sides.

Then cut out on the edge of the foam.

Now you can move it to the middle and cut out the squares on the corners to the foam.

Make sure you make 2 of these for the front and back.

download the pdf for drawn visuals

step one

• Sew just the outside edges and leave a good size hole on the length (the longer side)

step two

• Pinch together the edges of the square from the same side. Once you pinch them together they will from a new line to sew.

step three

• Turn the fabric inside out so the seems are now on the inside

step four

• Use the ladder stich to close the hole. For this stich you should first tie a knot. I made a loop with thread.
• You first insert that on the inside and pull through.

repeat these three steps till you reach the end

• Then go straight across to the other side of the fabric. (this is light purple in the visual)
• go underneath about 1/4 of an inch and come back up. (this is the dark purple color in the visual)
• go straight across to the other side again. (this is the lighter purple too)

To finish it, tie a knot and pull through near where you just came out of. Bring the needle back through anywhere pull tight and cut it. This leaves the string inside the pillow.

Here is also a link for a great video showing the ladder stich more closely.

download the pdf for drawn visuals

Mark where you want to sew you can use a reference image of a cracker. I like the one with a bunch of detail but simpler would be a lot faster.

For this part make sure to use two strands out of the six in embroidery floss otherwise it will break when you tighten it!

Also when knotting just do it till it feels secure to you. I did a square not (left over right and then right over left) and then with then since you have 4 strings total I tied the two that were tied together to each other to avoid the original square knot slipping.

To do the outside bumps put your needle as straight as you can get it and squish it through. You can use a thimble for this part or just pinch the needle while you squish the foam. Then just simply tie the top and bottom strings together tightly.

The center indents are the exact same thing but you have to bring the string back up and tie tight again.

To deal with the excess strings you can re-thread your needle and pull it through somewhere else and cut it tight like with the ladder stich. I did this for most of the outside stiches but then got lazy and just carefully cut them pretty close but with a small amount of excess.

download the pdf for drawn visuals