31 Days of Halloween 2014 - Day 16: Fun Franky Pillow with Free Pattern

Good morning, er, afternoon ;)  I'm late because I was making this little guy this morning.  I have to say, I like things to be reusable (pillows in particular), so I made this a cover.  But you could just sew the top seam together, leaving a space to flip and then stuff and stitch closed.  Totally up to you.  That would certainly cut out a few steps, but the benefit of a cover is that you can remove it and wash it.  With 4 kids, that is a total necessity.

I saw this pic from a flyer at Hobby Lobby, and knew I needed some of these adorable guys on my couch :D

Here's the pin

This makes a cover for a 12"x12" pillow form

Supplies:
Pillow form or pillow batting (if you choose to not make it a cover)
1/2 yard green fabric
1 sheet black craft felt
1 sheet white craft felt
button or velcro (I used a button)
Free pattern

First cut out 2 squares and 2 triangles (or 2 adjusted tabs, see bottom of tutorial to see what I mean)

Lay one of your green squares on a flat surface and lay your black felt on top.  Cut a strip with varied triangles however you would like.  Baste stitch the top, then the sides from top down (this keeps it all lined up properly).

Cut out the 2 larger circles from white felt and the 2 smaller circles from black felt.  Figure out where you would like them to be.

Stitch the black circle to the white circle with black thread.  

Pin the eyes onto the square of fabric and stitch with white thread.  When sewing the black circles on, try to leave a little space so you can sew the white on without it being so obvious.

Now, we're going to assemble the cover itself.  We're going to do French seams, so this is going to feel a little weird.  First pin your pieces WRONG sides together.  Sew around the outer edge with a very narrow seam (maybe 1/4")

Trim close to stitching.

Now flip your cover inside out and pin around the edges.  Switch your needle as far to the left as it'll go and sew around the edge.  You now have completely contained seams :D

Onto the tab.  Sew your 2 triangle pieces together, and trim close to the seam.

Flip right side out and press.  You will have 2 little corners peeking out the bottom - just trim those off.

Find the midpoint of both the tab and the pillow front and pin together with tab laying INSIDE the pillow cover.  Stitch along the top line.  

Flip tab to the outside and pin, then sew.

Flip tab up and push the inside seam down toward the main pillow portion and pin down.

Fold over twice the back side of the cover so that it is even with the front and covers the raw edge.  Topstitch all the way around, making sure to use black thread for the front by the hair.

 Sew a buttonhole on the tab and sew a button to the back of the pillow cover.  If you'd rather, you can sew velcro on instead.  Oh, and don't forget to sew some straight line and zig zag line stitches on his forehead :)  If you'd like them to be more noticeable, you could hand stitch them with embroidery thread, or cut them out of felt and machine sew them on.  Totally up to you!!

Excuse my horrible buttonhole - my new sewing machine has an automatic buttonhole foot that I'm still trying to figure out ;P

And you're all done!  Here's Franky with his new buddies - Mr. D. and Baby Lego the teddy bear.

Say CHEESE!!

One thing I will say is that the top corners of the pillow form tend to pop out the corners where the tab doesn't quite cover it.  What you could do is add about 2-3 inches straight down from the bottom edge of the triangle to give it more coverage.  That would give it a shape kind of like this:

The original shape of the tab

If you make one, I'd love to see pictures :D  Enjoy!!

***Update**

If you'd like to do a zippered variation of this pillowcase, here's how you would do that, and these pieces have been added to the free pattern on Craftsy:

Print out pillow pattern and lay a sheet of 9"x12" green felt on the bottom.  Lay a same-sized piece of black felt on the top, and either use the pattern, or tweak it to what you'd like, or just cut your own jagged hair.  Pin to the green.  Sew a straight line across, so you can sew the eyes and other accessories underneath.

Do the same for the back, but without the jagged edges.  Trim the green felt close to the seam line.

Do the eyes exactly the same, and cut some bolts out of grey felt and baste to the sides, facing inward.

Cut 2 long thin strips of black felt (not included in pattern) for the scars.

Cut 6 small strips for the crossbars of the scars.

Use a straight stitch and stitch down the long piece first, then each crossbar.  Also sew on his mouth at this point.

I only had a black zipper, so I did the closure on top.  Use a 7" zipper.  For instructions on how to do this, check out Vlad's tutorial.  Open zipper when done for flipping right side out.

Sew around all the outer edges with right sides together, then clip corners and flip through zipper.  

I don't know, he seems to have a younger look to him than the first Franky.  Maybe we'll call this guy Franky Jr. :)  Alright, a Twofer!!  Father and son pillows to adorn your couch :D

As always, if you make one, please post pictures so I can see what you come up with :D  Thanks!

***For personal use only.  If you would like to make items to sell, please contact me about purchasing a commercial license.  Thanks!!***