Tooth Fairy Pocketed Patch Pillow

Something big happened at our house today.

Yep, my baby girl lost her first baby tooth.  It happened in a flash.  Recently friends have posted to FB pictures of their children and their gaps, and I thought- wow, Ada doesn't even have a loose tooth.  Last night that changed, and today, the tooth was out.  I thought I'd have a little bit of time to whip up a pillow, but  no such luck.  She lost her tooth at about 3pm.  I decided to make her a pillow out of my favorite fabric-  Sarah Jane. 

I'm always excusing my pictures, but I have a camera that's nicer than my picture taking abilities.  Something is funky about the flash.  Couple that with poor lighting in our home and the late hour, and well, I'm sure by now you're buying the excuses for my poor pictures.  There is no such excuse I can offer for the following tutorial.  It is as clear as mud, but I hope the inferior pictures make it understandable enough to do on your own- should you too need to make a tooth fairy pillow quick like.

Materials:

-2 pieces of fabric about 9x7 (1 for background, another for backING)

-3 scrap pieces of fabric for front panel

1. Sew two strips of scrap fabric together and hem a seam of the top strip.  This is going to be your pocket.

2. Put these pieces on top of your background fabric.

3. This is where it gets a little tricky.  You need to take your third piece of scrap fabric and position it right sides together over the strips, and the background fabric.  (You're working without a pattern here, and basically what you are doing is freepiecing a patchwork square, or in this case, a rectangle- of sorts.) With a 1/4 inch seam allowance, sew from top to bottom across the background fabric and the strips

4.  Press your seam, flip it over, press the panel.  Easy peasy.

5. Square it up and you're done (with the top), but the hard part is over.

6.  Now, get your backING fabric and cut it to fit the panel you've just created. 

7. Put the backing and your panel right sides together and pin.

8.  Sew all the way around. Leave a gap for stuffing.  Note that my gap is at the bottom.  A better place would've been one of the sides.  

9. Trim your corners.

10.  Go to your kitchen drawer and get those chopsticks that you don't know why you have.  If you don't have said chopsticks, snag a pair next opportunity, stick them in your purse and remember to put them in your kitchen drawer.  Forget that you have them until you need to pull the outside out of the inside of something. 

11.  Ta da.  

12.  Stuff (chopsticks handy here also ) and close your hole.  (In my case- have your Mama do it because your own whipstitch is sad- very sad).

I'll get a better picture of the finished project in the day time. 

Of course you could make this pillow as simple, or complicated- or wonky as it suits you.  I thought about adding an extra piece to the left, leaving a tiny pocket in the middle, but settled on quick and dirty.  Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

Also, how much does the Tooth Fairy leave these days?  My husband says a quarter. I convinced him that that wasn't nearly enough.  He went up to $1- but that's what I got 30 some-odd years ago.  Has inflation hit the TF?  Ada hasn't decided if she wants the TF to take her tooth, so it may be a moot point.