Fluene's Corner: Tutorial - My Melody Pillow cum Blanket

Promised some mummies that I will write a step by step guide on how to sew the pillow cum blanket. So here's for the My Melody. Happy sewing!

Materials :

Pink fleece (1.5m)
White fleece / knit (0.3m)
Black fleece (small piece)
Orange fleece (small piece)
Jacket zips ( 2 x 24")
Polyfiber

The above materials should yield :

Head (2 pieces)
Face (1 piece)
Eyes ( 2 pieces)
Mouth ( 1 piece)
Ear ( 1 piece)

Steps :

1) Sketch and cut the outline of the head of My Melody on a piece of paper. (I made mine about 22cm width). Pin it on the pink fleece and cut accordingly. (You will need 2 pieces for the head).

2) Sketch and cut the outline for the face. Place on top of the head piece and adjust accordingly. Once you are satisfied with the size and shape, pin on the white fleece and cut accordingly. (You can still adjust the size and shape while sewing)

Left : Cutting the head piece
Right : Pinning the face piece onto the head

3) Cut the eyes and mouth using the black fleece and the nose with the orange fleece.

4) Place the face piece on the head and pin in place. Arrange the eyes, nose and mouth and pin in place. Adjust the placement of the facial features according to your desire.

The face with eyes, nose and mouth in place

5) Set the sewing machine to the edge finishing stitch (Stitch no. 10 for NV50). Install the right sewing foot (G foot).

Note : Stitch no. 10 is usually used for serging when there is no proper serger. Refer here for how the G foot and stitch look like.

6) Begin sewing the face, followed by the eyes, nose and mouth. (Use white thread for face, black thread for eyes and mouth, orange / pink thread for nose).

7) Cut a piece of rectangular pink fleece. Pin it as the left ear. Sew in place using the same stitch (no. 10). Before completing the stitching, insert a little polyfiber into the left ear to make it fluffy. Once the desired fluffiness is achieved, sew to close all opening.

Left : Sewing the left ear
Top right : Sewing the eye
Bottom right : Inserting the polyfiber into the left ear

8) Cut a piece of pink fleece to the size 1m x 1m. This will be the blanket.

(Sorry, no picture from here onwards as I met with a little accident and did not manage to take any picture as I sew).

9) Place the sewn head piece on the upper middle of the blanket with the face facing up. The right side of the blanket should also be facing up.

10) Place the other head piece (without the face) at the bottom middle.

10) Open up the jacket zip. Pin one side of the jacket zip to the face and blanket piece, starting from the left jaw of the My Melody. Pin the other side of the jacket zip to the other head piece (without the face). (The zipper should start at the jaw and ends at the top of the head). Repeat for the right side of the face.

Tip : It would be helpful to randomly pin all over both head pieces in place as you may find that you will need to remove some pins while sewing. The extra pins will ensure that the pieces will not run out of place as fleece is very stretchy.

11) Install the zipper foot to the sewing machine and sew the zips in place.

12) Cut 2 pieces of orange fleece in the shape of a flower and one round piece of pink fleece for the middle part. Sew the round pink fleece onto one of the flower piece using the edge finishing stitch (Stitch no. 10).

13) With the right side of both flower pieces facing each other, sew along the edge using normal straight stitch, leaving behind an opening of about 5cm.

14) Turn the flower piece inside out. Insert a little polyfiber into the flower piece through the opening. Hand sew to close the opening. Then, hand sewn the flower piece onto the My Melody.

The end result : as a blanket

Fleece does not fray easily, thus there is no need for finishing at the blanket piece. However, one can always handsewn some decorative finishing to the edge to make it more appealing. Yarn would be a good choice for this.

The blanket can be turned into a pillow by zipping up the jacket zips. First, fold the pillow into half at the chin of the My Melody. Attach the jacket zips together. As you pull along the zipper, stuff the blanket fabric in between both head pieces. Once both zippers are fully pulled, all the blanket fabric will be contained inside and it has now turned into a pillow!