Pillow Beds

Have you ever heard of Woot.com? Or Kids Woot? Every day they do a different deal on some product, and when it sells out, it’s gone. Well, in May or June, my hubby saw this:

They were called Nap-N-Go Nap Rolls. They were $10, not counting shipping. They had a pillow, and then a fleece blanket, so it kinda was a soft sleeping bag. It rolled up like so:

Well, when he sent it to me, he told me he thought it was fun and we should get it. What did his wife say? I’m sure something similar to what you might have said. “Pshaw. I can make that.” To which he responds “for $10? with everything?” and I say “Yeah, and even better!” So, I sent him this link from Pinterest for this project someone did:

Okay, maybe if you’ve seen the picture floating around Pinterest? It links up to No Rest for The Creative here, where she makes it from knit fabric, and I didn’t like that idea. She also made a version with woven fabric here that I made. Her version looks like this:

I liked the idea of this one much better. So, I made it following her instructions. It looks like it may be a pattern you have to buy now. I just barely made it in June, so crazy timing. Anyway, here’s the differences I made.
This is what mine look like all folded up.

So I added ribbon at the bottom to make it easy to keep them folded/rolled up. I should backtrack really quick. The hubsters and I kept talking about the idea, but it wasn’t going anywhere, so I wasn’t planning on making these right now. When we were at Target one day, they had a bunch of pillows on clearance for $2 each. Plus, they had some duvet sets on clearance too. So I grab 8 pillows, and let them choose which duvet set was the prettiest, and bought my supplies. (4 pillows per bed=$8, total cost of duvet was $9.) The other difference was I added a fleece blanket to the pillow bed so it was attached. They got to choose their fleece from my stash (free) and then I added the ribbon, also from my stash (free!) So for the total cost, these came in right around $10-11, and I have a TON of fabric left over from my king size duvet for something else.
Picture this by the way...8 pillows, 2 kids, 3 big packs of diapers, 1 duvet set, and a windy day in the parking lot at Target...Those pillows kept blowing out of the cart! So fun...
So, since her site isn’t going to give you the instructions and how-to, I’ll just go over it, so if you want to try your hand, you sure can. (you may need to do a little bit of that 4-letter word…M-A-T-H *gasp*) Know that I didn’t print anything off, just had the computer by me in the sewing room following her general steps, and I didn’t take pictures of things, planning on referring you to her site. So, we’ll just go over basics. Basically this ends up being 80'”x26”, I think. You need 4 pillows, and a few yards of fabric. You are sewing the front piece as one whole piece, so it’s around 82x28, and then you have 2 back pieces that you finish an edge, and then sew them to the front. If you look at the pictures, you can see the opening in the back to put the pillows in and out (washable, yeah!), and that’s basically it. You’ll press everything, and then sew the lines across every 20” to separate the pillow compartments. Also, she did French seams. If you were to serge yours, you wouldn’t need to worry about that. Do you know how to do a French seam? You sew something together wrong sides together, then trim it down to a 1/4”, then iron it, turn it right sides together, and sew another seam. They make a nice finish so your seams don’t fray, but you are sewing everything twice. Your call. You could just finish your edges, or use a fabric that does fray, like a knit or fleece. Anywho, I did mine with the French seams, but then I added in the blankets on the side and the bottom. BTW my blankets were about 45” by 65”, just because that’s the width of one of the fabrics, and I just picked to make them that long.

So if you look at this picture, I sewed the wrong sides together, and then put in the fleece for the blanket, so when I sewed it right sides together, the blanket was in and secure. The bottom I gathered just to make it fit to the correct width.

As soon as I pull these out, they run to go sit on them, even if they’re in the middle of breakfast . I tried to sit on it once when they weren’t being used, and they got mad and kicked me out. I think they look comfortable, but I can’t testify to that…So can you see the gathers at the bottom?  Thing 1’s fleece wasn’t the right width, so I added some strips to make it the same size as the other one. Then, when I was doing the bottom, I put in the ribbon the same time as the bottom of the blanket, and made sure they were nice and secure, then sewed it right sides together. Comprende? When you sew the lines for your pillow compartments, just be careful you don’t sew the blanket in. That would kind of defeat the purpose. Here’s another view of it finished:


The kidlets love them and want to watch movies with them all the time. Just look at that grin!

My baby must be a fan if she isn’t even holding her blanket (above her on the couch).

They even work great to share when the cousins come over! And it put the baby to sleep Bad cell phone pic, but too cute not to show! Man, they are really into Finding that Nemo, eh?
If you decide to try this, let me know if you have any questions or need something clarified. Bad timing with having to buy the pattern now, but everyone needs to make a living somehow, eh? Happy Wednesday!