The kid loves to lie around on the carpet and takes her naps on her Dora sofa/bed in her princess tent that we have set up in the living room. When I saw these pillow mats online, my first thought was why didn’t I think of this before and my next was I have to make it! So here’s my tutorial on how to make your own pillow mat!
I purchased 5 yards of this cute fabric and I had a coupon for 60% off so it ended up being about $16 and then I also purchased 4 pillows from Ikea a few weeks back when I saw the sign that said $2 each! I must say though that these pillows are pretty thin so if you want something fluffier/fuller you could shell out another $4 for some Walmart pillows. Either way, you can switch your pillows out whenever you want so anywho material cost wise it all came up to about $24. I even had some fabric left over so that’s always a plus! If you have old bed sheets or you don’t care about the pattern, you could pretty much make it for even cheaper.
I prewashed my fabric because cotton shrinks, but I hate wrinkles and ironing so a tip for minimal wrinkles and getting away with not having to iron 5 yards of fabric….once the drying process is done take it out of the dryer right away and lay it out flat.
Also a quick course on sewing terms:
Selvage edges are the sides that are finished edges of the fabric. Typically, fabric designers and companies print their names along one of these finished edges.
Raw edges are the edges that are cut and fraying. It’s the edges that the fabric person at the store cuts. When you prewash your fabric, you’ll see all the threads all tangled together on those ends.
Seams are where two pieces of fabric are sewn together. We will be using 1/2 seams in most of this tutorial so from the edge, measure 1/2 and that is where you will be sewing the line to sew the fabric together.
Right side is the front (pretty if you have a pattern) side of the fabric.
Wrong side is the back (faded if you have a pattern) side of the fabric.
Now let’s get started!
I folded my 5 yards in half so that I could cut in in two and have a piece for the front and one for the back (you can get about 2.5 yards of two different fabrics, but I loved this pattern so much!) Because of the shrinkage, it wasn’t perfect and straight on all sides so I lined up one of the long selvage sides and straightened everything out as best I could. My pillows were standard pillow sizes (20 x 26) so I measured out 80 inches (20 x 4) and then I laid my four pillows down for a helping visual. The cut and where the pillows lined up to were a bit off, but that’s okay because the pillows need room to be stuffed into. 
Next, because I had folded the 5 yards in half, one of the pieces was upside down so I turned both pieces right sides together (the pretty sides facing each other) and also made sure the pattern on both sides were going in the same direction. I lined up one of the selvage sides again and pinned along that side using lots of pins. I then trimmed and cut the short raw edge sides (ends) so that I could have straight edges to work with and added a few pins along the raw edges near the selvage edge that I pinned to help hold the pieces together as I sewed. 
I sewed down the long edge that I pinned together (one piece of the fabric had the selvage edge thatshows the designer of the fabric so I sewed a 5/8 seam instead of a 1/2 seam for this selvage side to ensure that the designer label would not show when I turned in right side out).
I opened up my two pieces of fabric (right side up). Starting with the piece that does not have the selvage side with the designer label showing and using the short, straight cut raw edge, I measured 26 inches out from the seam that was sewn and folded the long edge in. I then pinned the raw edge fold down with a few pins. I did this to the other raw edge end too and then going along the middle section, adjusted the fabric fold so that it was all at 26 inches from the seam and added some pins along the fold to help hold it in place.
Once that was done, I flipped the side that I folded and pinned over onto the piece that had the selvage edge. Now here is where you will learn from my mistake. Originally, I had just folded the bottom piece over onto the folded piece, but I realized after I was turning everything right side out that it was hard to keep all the folded fabric straight. So I didn’t take pictures of this next part, but will explain it. I hope it makes sense!
You see where the top fold lays on the bottom piece? I should have cut the bottom piece along where this fold was and then hemmed the long, raw edge of that bottom piece. And I mean hemmed as in, folded the cut edge over 1/2 inch (wrong sides together), fold it again 1/2 inch, and then sewn it down. This helps keep the raw edge from fraying too much later on after washes and it looks cleaner. And, be careful when cutting the bottom piece that you don’t cut into your folded piece!
Now back to the tutorial.
I lined up all my edges and taking my pins that I already had on the first piece I folded, I pinned the bottom piece onto the rest of the pieces to hold everything together. You should now have the something that looks like this. 26 inches from long side to long side.
Next I just sewed a 1/2 inch seam from raw edge (short ends) on both sides. Then if you have a serger you can serg the ends to help keep the ends from fraying and I do have one, it’s just that my prego self was too lazy to go lug it to where I was because I don’t have nice huge crafting room so instead I took pinking shears and pinked the edges. This also helps it fray less because of the zigzag way it cuts the fabric.
After I took out all of my pins and turned the entire thing right side out. It looked like a huge pillow case. I straighten out my fabric/folds and made sure that the width all along the case was 26 inches wide. Then ironed it flat and I added pins to help hold all the fabric pieces together after ironing.
From the top down, I measured 20 inches and marked it using my washable fabric pencil. From that line I measured another 20 inches and marked it. I did this until I had 4 sections for my 4 pillows. If it’s not exactly 20 inches, it’s okay and the pillow should still fit as long as it’s not way off. Then I sewed all the way across from one long side to the other long side using these lines to separate out my pillow sections and stuffed the sections with the pillows! Done!
Here’s my chubby cheeks enjoying her new pillow mat. Nummy isn’t it? I was going to make her a blanket to go with this pillow mat, but she still loves her fleece pah-pah that I made for her when she was 1 so no need!
You can fold the top pillow under to prop the head up. Or you could roll it under twice to prop it even higher to be more in the reclining position.
Hope you enjoyed my tutorial. Happy sewing!!!
