Reading Cushions

For Christmas last year, one of the moms I babysit for gave me two fat quarter bundles of adorable flannel fabrics. One was helicopter and airplane themed, the other dinosaurs and cats. There were a  couple of coordinating prints as well.

I don't often use flannel, so I stuck them on a shelf until a couple of weeks ago, when I finally came up with the perfect way to use them - cushions for when the littles and I are sitting on the floor reading 😊

I cut out 16" squares and paired the fabrics together, then stitched around, leaving an opening for stuffing. I considered just making cushion covers, but I didn't have inserts and making separate inserts felt like too much work, lol. I'm thinking I'll just throw the cushions in the washer as needed and hope for the best.

I had some old scraps of fluffy polyester batting that I used for the stuffing, after pulling the pieces apart so the cushions wouldn't be too lumpy.

Silas was my helper for stuffing the first one. He loved pulling the pieces apart to make them extra fluffy 😊

All the pictures of the kids I babysit are shared here with permission from their mothers.

We didn't stuff them all the way full because I didn't want them too high when the littles are trying to sit on them. And as a side note, it sure does take a lot of stuffing to stuff something! It always seems to take so much more than I think it will.

I had to break my self-imposed hand stitching ban to ladder stitch the cushions closed, but sometimes you just want to get something finished. I love how ladder stitch is like magic - it's stitched, but you can't see it at all.

And the cushions are a big hit!

Gregory, here, kept laying down on the cushions, which was adorable, but every single time I crouched down with my phone to take his picture he sat straight up again. You'll just have to take my word for it that it was pretty cute 😊

It feels good to make something I've been wanting for a while and to use pretty fabric that isn't what I usually use. It's a win-win!