Making a Travel Pillow or Neck Pillow

A few years ago, I wanted a project that the girls could do themselves and to have them make something useful. I thought of little travel pillows. I use fleece and cut it into little rectangles. 

On the top of the pillow, I traced their names and had them back stitch their name on the pillows with colored crochet string. The name always let me know whose pillow was whose and they didn't take up as much room in the car and they could put them in the overnight bag with a blanket and pj's without dragging a pillow around or getting it dirty as pillows will sometimes do when traveling because it is small enough to go in the travel bag. 

The first thing is to decide the size and shape of your pillow. Princess number six wanted a neck pillow she could take on the plane with her. We decided on her favorite color of blue for the fabric. I had some left over from another project so that worked out. I like the fleece as it is soft. You could make the pillow out of any fabric and just make a fleece cover but these are so easy to make and wash it is great. 

Cut out a top and bottom for the pillow and make it a bit larger than you want it as you need to give a seam allowance. Then, trace the letters or picture you want onto the top. Put it in a hoop and back-stitch using whatever color thread, yarn, or string on it that you choose.  You can see her working on it in this post here.

Once the stitching is done, Sew the front and the back together with right sides together leaving a small amount open on the side to turn the project right side out. Once it is sewn, make sure if you are doing a round neck pillow that you clip the curves so that you can open it without tearing the seams. You can see that in the above photo.  

Then, turn the protect right side out and then you are ready to stuff it. I usually use batting or polyester stuffing to fill the pillows but I was thinking how nice it would be to have those little beads that are in the squishy pillows. About an hour after I had that thought, Princess number 4 came in with this little red bed pillow saying it had a hole in it and I thought how great it would be to use the beads to fill her neck pillow. 


We used a paper for a funnel and dumped the beads into her neck pillow filling it enough to make it firm but not hard. 


We then sewed the inside spot we left open to stuff it using the machine but I should have done it by hand but I was being lazy. The pillow came out cute and she was happy with it.

She is excited to try it out this week. We'll have the opportunity! It is another busy week.