DIY Emoji Pillows

This Intstructable was actually a really fun and helpful one cause I just learnt to STITCH !!!!

I'm generally oriented towards tech, outdoor and building new things. For example using DC motors, arduino or even NXT mindstorms, but I said why not give stitching a try. Also in my Intsructable I didn't use a sewing machine, I went old school and accomplished my goal by hand stitching. And since I'm not used to stitching I took some time for my first few pillows, but eventually got the hang of it. I guess the best way to know if you like some skill set or not is if you just explore. And hey now I can stitch my shirt or pant button, if it falls off and not depend on others.

Important life skill learnt :P of course you poke yourself easily with the needle ( main reason I was preventing myself from doing this Intsructable ) but it's all in the experience.

Plus it's better to make these pillows than to spend $20 on a ready made one that has no color and looks bad :P

Not a lot of materials required, plus I got mine for really cost-effective prices.

1. Yellow and brown fleece ( I got mine from amazon, $5 each and I bought one yard in both colors)

2. Pillow stuffing ( Got it from amazon too, about $15 for 5 pounds )

3. Foam/Felt ( red, black, blue, white and pink )

4. Fabric glue ( Got mine from Target, I think it was less than $2 )

5. Scissors ( Use a sharp one that cuts well through fabric )

6. Dark-colored sketch pens ( So that when you trace the circular object, you can see the mark well )

7. Circular object ( I used a plate of 9.5" diameter and made 12 pillows, But it's up to you on what size you want to make)

8. Stitching/sewing kit ( It's better to use the yellow thread so it blends well along with the fleece, but because I ran out of yellow I just used some other light colors like orange, white, etc. )

9. Few clips to hold the fleece material together while stitching

The size of the pillow really depends on what size you want and how many pillows you wanna stitch. I wanted a good amount of pillows for a good size and choose a 9.5" diameter circle. And I was able to get 12 pillows in 1 yard of fleece material. So bigger the circle , lesser the amount of pillows ( That is if you buy 1 yard )

Trace out two circles with your marker or a dark sketch pen so that when you cut it out, the boundary is clearly visible. Place both the circles on top of each other. But remember the softer side of each circle should be touching each other. ( Because once you finish stitching, you don't wanna see the stitches cause it looks ugly, so you invert it / inside out. That's when you get the softer side )

Use clips to hold the two circles in place, cause you wanna stitch both together perfectly. Also stitch half a centimeter from the boundary of the circle, so that all the stitches don't come out.

The stitching seems a little advanced but it's just one move. Thread the needle and tie a knot in the end of the thread. Bring the needle out through the fabric from any one side, and then after a few millimeter gap pierce it back from one side to the other. IN and OUT, repeatedly

But don't stitch the pillow cover completely, cause you need to stuff the pillow stuffing in it. In my fourth picture above, you can see there's only one clip left. I used that as a marking to stop stitching there, cause I needed a hole big enough to put the stuffing in.

Once your done, invert the pillow. Next stuffing the pillow. I had like 5 pounds of stuffing cause I didn't know how much to stuff. But anyways I stuffed a lot and got a really fluffy and good looking pillow, Not a pillow that looked weak.

After your done stuffing, you need to close up that open area. So you can either just stick it with fabric glue or do what I did by stitching it up to make it look uniform. Plus stitching lasts longer than glue.

So your done with your pillow

Now the fun part.

I made all my emojis with happy faces and not the sad ones :P

It's difficult to provide a template for you guys, cause every pillow size differs and so will the details of the emoji. In fact some of my emoji eyes and eyebrows are not symmetrically, it's just the matter of being original.

I really wanted to perfect my pillows, so I spent a lot of time on the details, A good idea to follow is, for example your doing the heart eyes emoji. Cut a big size heart and then put it on the pillow and see if it looks good. If not, just cut the same heart smaller and keep cutting/measuring until you get a good size. So in that case you won't waste the foam

To stick the foam pieces I used fabric glue. Once you stick it on the pillow, hold the pillow down for a few minutes, so that the foam sticks well to the fleece material.

Making every detail was quite simple, just look at the emoji picture on you phone or google and replicate one.

If your trying to do the angel emoji's halo, Take two strips of blue foam and staple both their ends together. Then just place it over the pillow and glue it. It's as simple as that.

So happy stitching !! and just explore...

Stitching 12 big pillows was tiring alright, But since I was bored and didn't wanna throw the fleece away, I just made smaller emojis from the excess material that fell out when I was doing the big emojis.

The foam too was wasted and since the smaller emojis require small pieces, instead of trashing it, I just shaped the eyes and other details out of it

Basically just follow all the steps once again, but for the smaller emojis, the details need to be extremely small. So take your time on this one..

Not too many pictures here, Cause I didn't want to post these as they didn't come out that well.

For the pretzel, I cut about 10" x 60" from my brown fleece. Then fold the material making it 5" x 60". Stitch along the open side of the fleece material. And here we don't put two pieces of 5" x 60" on top of each other, because then you'll have to stitch two sides and that takes like a long time. Once your done stitching, turn it inside out and stuff it with pillow stuffing, then seal the opening for the pillow stuffing.

I cut out square pieces of white foam to make it look like salt, but I don't think it looked that convincing.

Remember, if you keep 60" as a constant length and make a 5" width for the pretzel it becomes really thick and the final result becomes smaller. But if you make a pretzel with 3" width then it becomes thinner and its easier to get the pretzel shape.

The poop emoji you have to cut two pieces out, same as the smiley emojis. Use white paint to get an outline of the shape. And just follow the same steps as the others. :)

So now I'm happy to say that stitching is much inside my comfort zone