Chibi Pillow

This week's craft is a prototype for a similar item I will be making for a friend's birthday at some point in the near future, and I thought that it made a rather nice craft in and of itself.

I'm not sure that you can call this a proper chibi, but I thought it was cute. For those of you who can't tell what/who this is (only 2/5 of the people I showed it to recognized it), this is Sherlock. As it, from the show Sherlock. As in: 

This Sherlock. (the one in the scarf)

Regardless, here are the step towards making your own chibi pillow.

First step: research. Generally, this just means scrolling through pages on pages of endless fan art, photos, etc. I used Google Images- whatever you want to use also works. I would suggest looking at chibis, cartoons, photos, etc. This was honestly the hardest or second hardest (haven't decided) part of the whole project- it is much harder than you might think to simplify a character down to a little square for a  pillow.

In the end, this is what I came up with. The really signature things about Sherlock's look are his curly hair and his scarf, so those were the things I tried to focus on.

 I then started out with this pile of scrap cloth in various colors that I thought I'd need (I wasn't just doing Sherlock originally)

 Needing two squares for each pillow, and making two pillows, I needed four squares out of this one piece of cloth. It being a 45" piece of cloth, I cut it down to 11.25" wide.

 To be fair, I actually ripped it- most non-stretchy cloth will rip if you just notch it at the front.

 I then folded it in four, and cut along the folds.

 I chose just one square as the one I'd focus on- of the other three, one will be the back, and the other two will be the other pillow.

 I began by measuring and cutting the first piece of cloth into the rough size of the square's top, to serve as the base for the hair.

 I didn't chalk out the hair line, and it turned out ok, but I can tell you that this was a lot more difficult than it needed to be- the best suggestions that I have for you: DON'T USE STRETCHY CLOTH. Also, felt is really nice, since it doesn't have to be hemmed. If you absolutely must used stretchy cloth, use the kind that can be burn-hemmed.

 I then cut out little circles (about 1" in diameter) for the eyes. Again, make sure you burn or hem these.

 This is to illustrate the burning that I did. The hope behind all of this is that you won't be able to tell, unless you feel it, that it's been burned.

 The next thing I did was to cut out the black strip for his coat.

 I then cut out the scarf pieces. Here was my biggest mistake- I wanted the scarf to be this size, as it stands out really nicely this way. Unfortunately, I forgot all about the fact that this type of cloth can't be burn-hemmed, it has to be actually hemmed. Even with a small hem, that too 1/4-1/2" off of the scarf, which was enough to not look as good.

 Now, this is the part that was competing with the research for the hardest part. Because his hair is curly, it has crazy curves and whatnot, and sewing on that hair with a sewing machine was difficult. It wasn't impossible, but it took a lot longer than a straight line.

 I then sewed on the bottom black rectangle, then the slanty bit of the scarf, then the straight part of the scarf. You can already tell that the scarf isn't as significant or large as it did a picture or two back.

 Sewing on the eyes I would suggest taking very slow or doing by hand. Also, make sure you lay all of this out before hand. Maybe even (*GASP*) use pins.

 I'm not sure if this will help any of you seamstresses out there, but this is the back of my pillow, in case you cared where I sewed what.

 I then sewed the second square onto the pillow, right sides together. In this case, with this cloth, that basically just meant sewing a square onto the face you've just created. Make sure to leave a slit of turning right-side-out and stuffing.

 I then turned it right-side out, stuffed it, and sewed it shut. Usually, I will just sew it shut with a sewing machine, and ignore the one little ridge created by the sewing machine, but since (as stated previously), this is a prototype for a gift, I decided to try my hand at an 'invisible stitch', which is often used to close things like this.

  Unfortunately, my skills at needlework generally encompass functional sewing, not necessarily pretty sewing, so you can kind of see my stitches. Not as much as you would a sewing machine, though.

 And there we have it! Ta-daa! Your very own chibi pillow!


The final product was about 11x11, but this could be sized up or down as much or little as you wanted, depending on materials and time.