Crochet Pillow With Cross Stitched Name

When I first learned how to crochet, the first thing my brother asked me was, "can you make me a pillow?" After getting better, I decided to finally make him one for Christmas and he loved it. Ever since then I have been making these for my friends and family as a nice heartfelt handmade present and they are a hit.

Yarn in desired color(s) - I usually need about one-two balls of Red Heart Super Saver Yarn for pillow base, and a few yards of the secondary color. This all depends on the size of the pillow and design.

Crochet Hook - 5.00 mm

Yarn Needle

Stuffing - amount depends on size of pillow - you need more than you would think

To get started on any crocheting project, the first think you need to do is to make a slipknot. We are going to start in the base color of the pillow, in my case blue. To make a slipknot, take your yarn and make a circle with it. Then, take the side of the yarn that goes into the ball and loop it inside of the circle. Pull on the part that you just looped inside and you should have your slipknot. You can test it by seeing if you can make it smaller and larger by pulling on the loop or the yarn going into the ball. The little tail left over is normal, leave this there as we will tuck it into the final pillow later.

Depending on how tall you want your pillow, chain stitches until it reaches desired height - keeping in mind it will be folded in half in this direction. I chose to make this one 100 long, or in the end 50 stitches high. To chain a stitch, you take the yarn from the ball, wrap it around the hook once, and pull through the slipknot with both and you will get a new slipknot on the hook and you will have the first stitch. Keep repeating this until you reach desired length.

After you have the initial chain, you want to begin the single crochet stitches. To do this, go into the hole of the first chain stitch closest to the hook. Wrap the yarn around the hook and pull through the chain hole. You will have two loops around the hook at this point. Wrap the yarn around the end of the hook one more time and pull through both loops on the hook. This will leave you with one slipknot on the hook. Repeat this until the end of the row.

After single crocheting in all 100 chain holes, you will have reach the end of the row. You will want to do a single chain stitch and then rotate the project 180 degrees until it has the hook back on the right hand side.

Repeat the single crochet and end of row step until the pillow is the desired width. This can depend on how long the name is, or the design you are wishing to cross stitch into the pillow. I normally do my letters about 5 rows wide with a row between each letter, and 2 rows before/after the name, so for a 4 letter name I will need at least 27 rows. After the last row is finished, expand the slipknot until it is big enough to tie a knot with. Cut the yarn the feeds from the ball and tie a knot with the slipknot that was left over. This will prevent it from coming unraveled.

After the desired width is reached, it is time to begin cross stitching. To do this, you will first need to prep the needle with the secondary colored yarn. Cut a piece of yarn off the ball that is about half your wingspan. This will not be enough to do all the cross stitching, but it will make it easier when pulling in in and out of the base. Once this is cut, thread the needle with the yarn. I find it easiest to do this by tightly folding the yarn over the thin part of the needle then threading that through the eye of the needle.

Before I begin the cross stitching, I make a knot at the end of the yarn on the needle and come in from the back of the base of the pillow. This allows the knot and the ugly stuff to be on the inside once the pillow is all sewn together. I do all the lines in one direction, then come back around and do the second slash to make them X's. The back woll look pretty ugly as you get further on and have to tie off pieces of yarn and start new ones.

Continue prepping the needle and stitching until the name is done.

If there is a lot of blank space left on the pillow, I will needlepoint a design into the empty space. Prep the needle the same way as you would for cross stitching. For this specific pillow, I am doing my university's logo. I have found this easiest by taking a sharpie and a printout of the design and bleeding the ink through the intersections of the lines of the design and connecting the dots with a straight edge. This way, you know where the lines should go and where they begin and end.

Other things I have done in the past include hearts, or little animals. I do these by looking up a pattern or pixel art on Google Images and transfer it into cross stitching on the pillow.

After the design is to your liking, it is time to begin sealing the edges together so it can be stuffed. I do this using my crochet hook. Set the hook up with the slipknot and fold the pillow in half with the design facing out. Begin at one corner and push the hook though both sides of the pillow and do the same single crochet stitch that the pillow is made out of. Continue to seal the pillow using the single crochet stitch through both sides of the pillow until you have reached the last edge of the pillow, only seal half way.

Once you have sealed two and a half of the edges of the pillows, I typically begin some of the stuffing at this point so I have plenty of room to pack it into the far corners. Stuff the pillow over half way at this point, making sure to stuff it well as it will get packed down over time and become thinner. I find it easiest to pull on the slipknot making it very large so I do not lose any stitches during this process.

Seal the last edge half way to three quarters of the way closed continuing the single crochet stitch, adding stuffing as you go to make sure the pillow is jam packed so it has room to settle as it gets used.

Finish sealing the pillow, again, stuffing it as much as possible as you finish up. After you finish sealing the pillow, there will likely be some ends that are hanging off that should be hidden. To do this, I take the crochet hook and thread them into the pillow and tuck them into the pillow.

Once the pillow is complete, it is time to give it to the lucky person that you made it for!