Tuesday Tutorial: Sleeping- Door Handle Pillow

After being inspired by seeing some hand-made stamped pillow cases in a real estate magazine (they said "Zzzzz"), and thinking about those hotel "Do Not Disturb" signs, I thought it would be fun to make a cute pillow to hang on a door to somehow say "Shhh! Sleeping". These cuties would be a great house-warming gift for someone to use on their guest bedroom door, or for a little one's door :) I made a printable template and included it at the bottom of this post with a bunch of different sayings - from "Zzz..." to "Shh...Sleeping" :)

Supplies:
- Two 5" fabric squares (I used white flannel)
- One 4.25" decorative fabric square (I used a flowery pattern)
- One 3.25" white fabric square (this will be the one you embroider words onto)
- 9" of coordinating decorative ribbon
- Embroidery floss (coordinating with your decorative fabric)
- Water soluble pen
- Stuffing (like Poly-fil fiberfill)
- Sewing pins
- Sewing needle
- Sewing machine, scissors
- Printer, to print out pattern (see end of post) - or you can hand-write your own
First, print out the sayings (see end of post), and cut out desired saying. Place under your 3.25" square and trace words with water soluble pen.
Next, begin embroidering the words with your coordinating embroidery floss. I used a french knot for the ellipses - check out a how-to video here. Then spritz a little water to dissolve the water soluble pen.
Now, position the embroidered square onto the middle of decorative fabric square and pin in place.
Using the sewing machine, sew a zigzag stitch around the perimeter of the white fabric square.
Pin this square to one of the 5" fabric squares (how you just pinned the white embroidered square on the decorative fabric). Sew another zigzag stitch around the perimeter of the decorative fabric. This will be the front of the pillow.
To make sure your ribbon handle is big enough to go around your door knob, make a loop and see how big the loop needs to be to slide easily on your door knob. Pin it at the bottom where the loop is the right size.Now, pin the loop onto the front of the pillow you have just sewn (see picture below) - make sure it is in the middle of the top edge.
Pin the other 5" fabric square on top so you have a sandwich. The front of the pillow is on the bottom, right side facing up, then the ribbon loop, then the 5" fabric square (if you are using decorative fabric for this square also, face the right side down). Pin two pins at the bottom about 1" apart. When sewing, you will leave this part open so we can flip the sandwich and stuff the stuffing in.
Sew a straight stitch around the perimeter of the sandwich with a 1/4" seam allowance. Leave the 1" opening where the two pins along the bottom are. Be sure to back-stitch several times to reinforce the seams of the opening.

Now flip the sandwich inside out! Stuff with stuffing, and then do a whip stitch (check out a tutorial here) to finish it.
Voilà! A fun little pillow to hang on the doorknob to let others know you or a little one are sleeping. :)

To print: Click on the image, right click to save, then print. :)