Kids Sewing Project – Book Pocket Pillow

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to teach the kids to sew pajama pants. We went fabric shopping and bought flannel fabric and I was getting up my motivation to start on them… coincidentally, at that very moment, my friend Esther posted a photo of pillows that her kiddos had sewn.

Sing Like Wildflowers

And so I thought, pillows looks like such a great stater sewing project. They look easier than pajama pants. Hmmm 🤔 And so I cut out the legs of the pajama pants and then used the leftover pajama pants fabric to help the kiddos make pocket pillows for the travel trailer. I’m thinking pajama pants will be a great second project. The pillows have a pocket to store a book or something in the front. I think this is a wonderful first sewing project and I’d definitely recommend it for older elementary aged children. It was only moderately nerve wracking for the supervising mama! It would also be a great gift to make at Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, a birthday, etc. Thanks again to Esther for posting her kids’ pillows and giving me this idea!

We used this tutorial but left off the handle and we didn’t use fusible interfacing:

Reading Pillow Tutorial

My daughter and I practiced first. Sewing right now is a one-on-one project. She chose to make the front pocket into two pockets by sewing a seam down it slightly to one side. One side of the pocket is for a book and the other side is for her watch. Pajama pants in the cute kitten fabric are next up on her project list. I cut the fabric with the rotary cutter. I probably should’ve let her do it but… I didn’t… rotary cutters make me nervous. I guess I could’ve drawn lines on the fabric and let her cut it with fabric scissors, but I didn’t think of that until just now! 🤦🏻‍♀️ She did all the sewing on my sewing machine though!

My son wanted to go next. Of my three children, he has the shortest attention span. This project was just within his attention limits. Again, I cut all the pieces and he did 99% of the sewing. He liked his sister’s pocket sizes and followed suit. Next, he’ll be making navy blue plaid pajama pants with penguin cargo pockets.

My other son graciously took the last turn to make his pillow. He’s almost 14, and he has lots of patience, fine motor skill, and attention to detail. He whipped this up pretty quickly. The two pocket style was the preferred pocket style of all three kiddos. As an aside, one of his favorite movies is “Cool Runnings” (1993) starring John Candy and Doug E. Doug. It’s based on a true story about the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team. He handmade his custom beanie using the colors of the Jamaican flag.

Our next kid’s sewing project will be the pajama pants to match the RV pillows! Too cute!

🧵 Do you sew? How old were you when you started? What was your first sewing project?