Tooth Fairy Pillow pocket lovey

This tooth fairy pillow is going to be a gift for my wonderful dental hygienist, Carra.

In recent years, I've developed awful sensitivity in my teeth from enamel damage incurred from grinding my teeth and/or clenching my jaw during sleep. I started wearing a mouth guard at night, but not until after the damage was already done.

Ever since my teeth were damaged, having dental cleanings done has been terribly painful, to the point where I even considered not going to the dentist at all anymore (yeah, of course, I know that skipping dental visits wouldn't have made my situation any better, obviously, but ugh). I even felt that I had to change dental practices because my previous dentist didn't seem to be sufficiently sympathetic to my pain and wasn't really working with me to follow a plan to manage it.

My new hygienist, Carra (and, really, the entire team at Dr. Shelton's), has been nothing short of AMAZING. Carra has been very sympathetic and gentle with me at every visit and always gives me and my teeth the most wonderful care.

I always try to profusely thank Carra each time I see her, to let her know how much I appreciate her wonderful "bedside manner," as it were, but in addition to saying thank you, I wanted to give her a small, tangible token to express my gratitude, and thus I went searching for a crochet tooth pattern that was both super adorable and also sort of representative of who she is in her career. To me, Carra is my personal tooth fairy angel! 👼

This free Tooth Fairy Pillow pattern by Heather Corinne Smith is just right in every way. (She also has a video tutorial you can follow.) The design makes a tooth softie/lovey of a nice size (mine is about 6 inches tall, not including the hanging loop, by 6 inches wide), and the kawaii embroidered facial features are just so cute. The pocket on the back (about 3.75 inches wide by 2.5 inches tall) is the perfect size for holding a Dutch Bros gift card and sticker to add an extra touch of sweetness to the gift. I finished mine by adding a bow made of a small scrap of hot pink ribbon (it was only about 8 inches long to start with, so it was barely long enough, but it worked!!) that I had in my stash and followed this quick tutorial on YouTube to tie it, then I carefully sewed it to the tooth using a needle and thread.

Back with pocket

This turned out so cute, and I think Carra is going to love it. So if you love your dental hygienist as much as I love mine, maybe you should make one of these for your hygienist, too!

Memory pillow

When my father-in-law died in 2019, one of his daughters, my sister-in-law Linda, saved one of his heavy plaid flannel Wrangler shirts with the idea of making it into a memory pillow, and I was honored when Linda asked me if I would be willing to make the pillow for her.

With a quick Google search for "memory pillow" or "how to make memory pillow," you will easily find many examples and tutorials for how to make one like this.

I was fairly sure how to go about it, but I watched this video tutorial by Lesley Chandler on YouTube to have the steps clear in my mind before starting.

To make one of these, you need to know the basic skills for working with a sewing machine. You're basically cutting two squares out of the shirt and then sewing them together to make a cover that will fit a square pillow form. If you're using a button-front shirt like I did, you don't even need to leave a gap in the sewing for turning the pieces right-side out, because the shirt's button front can serve that purpose. And, in the future, you can also open the buttons to remove the pillow form any time you want to launder the pillow cover, so it's a win-win.

Begin by laying the shirt out flat, with all the buttons buttoned, on a large tabletop. Iron the shirt to help the fabric lie evenly if it has any wrinkles. I measured the distance across the front between the sleeve seams to get an idea of what the largest size pillow cover that the shirt would make. It was about 18 inches between the sleeve seams across the front. 

I had an extra 18-inch square Ikea feather pillow form on hand that I wanted to use for this project. Knowing that the finished pillow cover will be less than the full dimensions of the cut fabric (because of the amount taken up by the seam allowances), I figured that my finished pillow cover would juuuust barely be large enough to work with that pillow form. But square pillow forms come in different sizes, so you should be able to find one that will fit your particular pillow cover.

You can make the cutting easier by first cutting a piece of newspaper into the shape/dimensions to act as the pattern. Since the distance between the sleeve seams was 18 inches, I decided to cut an 18-inch square to be my pattern. 

I laid the shirt out flat on a cutting mat on my work table and positioned the pattern on top. I adjusted the position of the pattern until I had it where I wanted it, using the placement of the shirt pockets as a guide to where the pattern should be placed. When I was happy with the placement, I pinned the pattern in place and used my fabric scissors to carefully cut around the pattern. You could use a rotary cutter and ruler if you're comfortable with those. I have those tools but didn't want to risk making a bad cut on this precious shirt.

After the pieces are cut, set aside the pattern and excess fabric. Turn the pillow cover squares so the right sides are facing each other and pin them together. Then sew them together using an appropriate seam allowance, carefully easing the machine through the bulkier areas across the button placket. I used about a 1/4-inch seam allowance for this.

 

After sewing all the way around, trim the excess fabric at the corners. Then unbutton the shirt's buttons and turn the pillow cover right-side out, using a blunt tool to help poke out the corners. Rebutton the buttons and press the sewn pillow cover again to smooth the seams.

The final step is to open the buttons again and place the pillow form inside. Button the buttons, and you now have a wonderful memory pillow of your loved one's shirt that you can hug whenever you want to.

In her video tutorial, Lesley Chandler shared that there are sellers on Etsy who make custom iron-on patches with a lovely little verse that can be added to a memory pillow project. She suggested this one and placed it on a bottom-front corner of her pillow. I think the patch would also work on a bottom corner of the back side of the pillow. 

I wasn't sure if Linda would want a patch like that on her pillow, however, so I sent her a link to it so she could see what it was and read about it, and then decide if she wanted it. She could always opt to add a patch to her pillow cover later, because the only equipment needed to add it is an iron.

After completing the memory pillow, I looked at the fabric scraps left over and decided there was plenty of fabric left to make a small memento for each of my father-in-law's four children, including Linda, my husband, and their other two sisters. I figured a keychain wristlet would be lovely and useful, and I already had the clasp hardware on hand.

I like this tutorial by Devi Therkildsen on YouTube for making "seamless" fabric wristlets that work with the type of clasp hardware I have on hand. Each wristlet requires a piece of fabric that's 12 inches long by 4 inches wide, and also a piece of lightweight interfacing of the same size if your fabric is lightweight. (I didn't use interfacing on these flannel wristlets because the fabric itself was already heavy enough to be durable.) You can see the four finished wristlets next to the finished memory pillow in the lead photo of this post.

Kawaii Pop Tart

Using my Addi King Size 46-needle knitting machine, I made this kawaii amigurumi Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tart toy.

I don't eat stuff like pop tarts anymore, but back in the day, the hot fudge sundae flavor was my favorite.

Recipe is 60 rows of crust/base color and 60 rows of frosting color. For a 48-needle machine, make it 65 rows of each. Since my pop tart is a Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tart, I used a dark brown yarn (Red Heart Super Saver in Coffee) for the crust color and a white yarn (Red Heart Super Saver in White) for the frosting layer. I recommend using waste yarn to cast on and cast off from the machine because it makes it easier to close the tubes later.

Crochet each end of the tube closed and remove the waste yarn. Then fold your tube in half, putting the crust color on one side and the frosting color on the other side. Using the crust color and a 5mm crochet hook, work half-double crochet stitches around the outside edge of the pop tart, first to join the ends of the tubes together (across the short side), then around the corner (placing at least 2 HDCs in each corner), then down one long side (joining the crust layer to the frosting layer), then around the next corner, then across the other short side (where the tube is folded), then around the third corner. At this point, lightly stuff the pop tart, just barely enough to give the center some loft (don't make it at all firm). After stuffing the center, continue crocheting around the last (long) side (again, joining the crust layer to the frosting layer) until you're back to where you started. Don't forget to work a couple extra stitches in that last corner. Then join to the first HDC stitch and fasten off.

I did 65 rows in my sample piece of a Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tart on my 46-needle machine, and the aspect ratio is a bit tall compared to what a real pop tart looks like, so I adjusted my recipe to be 60 rows of each color on the 46-needle machines, which should work better, and 65 rows of each color on the 48-needle machines.

For the eyes, I used a couple of 10mm eyes from this kit that I bought on Amazon. I embroidered the little mouth using a small length of Red Heart yarn in black.

For the colorful sprinkles, I found this skein of Ice Yarns Lorena Print in purple/pink/yellow/green/turquoise, which are the exact same colors as the sprinkles on the real Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tarts. And for the chocolatey swirls, I embroidered chain stitches using more of the Red Heart yarn in the Coffee (brown) colorway.

Inspo photo

Giant Timothy T-rex

I had this one skein of colorful Red Heart Super Saver Color Block yarn in the Party Time colorway that I wanted to use to make something for Rose. Orange is featured prominently in the colorful skein, and orange is one of Rose's favorite colors. 

At first I tried to see if there was enough yarn to make something to wear, like a "Housecoat of Many Colors" sort of thing. But the one skein wasn't enough for that, and apparently the colorway was discontinued, so I couldn't buy more.

Not enough yarn to make a cardigan or blanket

So then I had another idea: Why not make a giant Timothy T-rex for Rose by holding the colorful yarn double with a neutral gray and using an 8mm hook? And that's how this giant Timothy was born. 

Timothy and friends

The pattern specifies to use 10mm safety eyes, but I didn't have any safety eyes on hand, so I used two 25mm black buttons from this kit that I found on Amazon. It has black buttons in a bunch of different sizes, so they are useful for lots of various projects. So far I have used these buttons for eyes on a few recent amigurumis: my Zoey Zebra and also my Halloween Melly Teddy Ragdolls Gabby Ghost and Bobby Bat.

Holding the two colors of yarn together and working at this large gauge with an 8mm hook, my finished Timothy stands about 15 inches tall. I hope he will make a nice, snuggly companion for Rose!

Sheepish Pajama Stuffie Pillow

Today happens to be my ninth Ravelry-versary (I joined the site on Dec. 1, 2010). And today I completed my 253rd project post there - a Sheepish Pajama Stuffie Pillow that I'm inordinately proud of. (I know - I'm weird. My husband already told me.)

For some years now I’ve had a project concept rolling around in my head where I wanted to make a stuffie pillow cover to keep my pajamas in during the day (instead of just folding them and leaving them on top of the bed - tacky, amirite??).

I found this Aran Fleck colorway by Red Heart and thought it would be perfect for crafting my sheep pillow’s “fleece” because the flecks in the yarn, to me, represent the random bits of grass and leaves and twigs that would naturally get tangled in a sheep’s fleece as it forages across the countryside. So figuring out which yarn to use for my project was not an issue.

What proved to be more difficult, however, was HOW to knit or crochet the actual pillow cover. I started and ripped back and started and ripped back I don’t know how many times (remember, I said this project has taken years for me to get it off the ground). My original idea was to crochet a pillow cover using the bobble stitch, because solid rows of bobble stitch totally look like fluffy sheep’s fleece. But every time I got going on a bobble stitch piece, I ended up with something that was either way too large (working flat) or way too wavy (working in the round), and I just wasn’t happy with any of them, and there didn’t seem to be any patterns out there where someone else had figured out the process in a way that would fit what I wanted my pajama pillow cover to be.

I came across a pattern by Purl Soho for a knitted Bobble Sheep Pillow that is SO adorable, and on first glance it appears to be just about the right size to be a pajama stuffie pillow cover. But the pattern is written for a heavier yarn than the Red Heart I have, and I just didn’t have the energy to try to convert the pattern to be the correct size at the gauge I’d be working in. Sigh! Maybe another time.

There are also many cute sheep hat crochet patterns out there (like this one, or this one, or this one), but again, none was easily translated into a pillow form that satisfied what I was looking for.

I had recently done some crochet projects (like this lovely autumn Little Rustic Pumpkin, pattern here) using the HDC in the third loop stitch, which, when worked flat, produces a fabric that strongly resembles knitted ribbing. I thought about it for a while and finally concluded that although it wouldn’t produce the cute, bobble-y, fluffy sheep-fleece look I had originally wanted, a sheep pillow done in ribbing would still look sufficiently sheep-y (texture-y) to get the job done. So I decided to give the crocheted ribbing fabric a chance.

I used a 7-inch by 12-inch microbead bolster pillow as a size guide for the body of the pajama stuffie pillow cover. (The finished cover fits over that bolster pillow perfectly. LOL)

In the Aran Fleck yarn, first I crocheted a flat circle using all FPDC stitches until it was about 7 inches in diameter. This would be one end of the pajama stuffie pillow cover. Working in the back loops only, I worked one row of HDC around the circle without joining at the end of the row and continued working back and forth in rows in the HDC-third-loop stitch until the body of the pillow cover was about 12 inches long. At this point I cut the yarn and crocheted another flat circle using all FPDC stitches (trying to work the second circle from the outside edge toward the center using decreases just didn’t want to look right … it might be possible to do it that way, but it was easier for me to break the yarn and work the second circle from the center outward). Without cutting the yarn I HDC’d around the circle catching the front loops only of the last row of the body stitches to join the second circle to the body.

This gave me a tube-shaped pillow cover that opens down its full length. To add a placket for buttoning, I joined the yarn along one edge of the opening and SC’d evenly across. Turned work and HDC’d across. Turned work and HDC’d across, chaining 1 and skipping a stitch where I wanted to place a button. Turned work and worked a final row of HDC across, including in the chain spaces. Finish off, weave in ends, and sew on buttons to line up with the buttonholes, and that’s all there is to making the body of the Sheepish Pajama Stuffie Pillow.

Originally I intended to use a zipper to close the pillow cover, but in the end I went with buttons (again, trying to keep it as simple as possible … remind me sometime to tell you the story of how I actually did throw a white zipper for this project into my shopping cart at the store, but when we got to the checkout the conveyor belt actually ATE my zipper - the belt just swallowed it where it turns and feeds down inside the cabinet - so I decided then and there that perhaps I wasn’t meant to use a zipper for this). I bought the buttons at Amazon.

For the face, using the black yarn, I emulated Kim Guzman’s (Crochet Kim) design for her Farmhouse Love My Sheep Pillow, free pattern found at this link. For her design Kim sews the face piece directly onto the front of her pillow as a sort of 3-D applique, lightly stuffing the face before stitching the opening closed. But for me, using a 5.5mm hook, the head turned out to be a bit taller than the end of my pillow cover, so I crocheted a second head piece and whip-stitched the two together, lightly stuffing the head before stitching the opening closed.

I wanted my sheep to be “sleeping,” so I embroidered sleeping eyes onto the face with a scrap of white yarn before sewing the two head pieces together, and I also stitched the ears to the front head piece (using the yarn tails left after working the ears) before sewing the head pieces together to make it easier to attach the ears where I wanted them.

I stuffed the pajama stuffie pillow cover with the microbead bolster pillow to plump it up for the photo shoot, but now my Sheepish Pajama Stuffie Pillow cover is ready to take its place on my bed to keep my pajamas stashed away and neatly out of sight. 😄

Plush heart free pattern

I made this little Plush Heart from the Knitnoodler's Blog for my sweetie for Valentine's Day. The instructions were very clear, and the project knit up quickly.