Football Pillow Tutorial

I know the super bowl is over, and I am like a week and a half late posting this, but that is just the way life goes sometime. My 9 year old has been begging me to make him something ever since I bought my sewing machine. So here it is: A football pillow.


Step 1:

Grab a flashlight and a football. Project the football shadow onto one yard of fabric that is folded in quarters. (I made 2 footballs. 1/2 yard will be just fine for one pillow)

Trace and cut out.

(This was my hubby's idea! Doesn't he have cute toes?)

Step 2:

Round off the ends of the football. If you leave them pointy like the actual shape of the football you traced, you will have more of a weird pointy triangle shape instead of a nice curved end. I forgot to take a picture of this but I basically cut off about 4" from each tip and rounded it into the sides of the football.

Step 3:

Add the stripes and laces.

I used paper to make my own pattern for the stripes and then I traced it onto the paper side of some fusible adhesive. Iron on the fusible adhesive to the wrong side of your white fleece and then cut out your stripes and laces.


Peel the paper off and lay everything in place and iron on.


My stripes were about 2" wide and I just eyeballed the laces. Sorry my measurements are not more accurate, but I kind of did this flying by the seat of my pants. :)

*NOTE: Make sure you curve your stripes a tiny bit, otherwise they will look out of proportion.

Step 3:

Stitch the stripes and laces in place, and sew the two halves of the football together with the right sides of the fabric together. Make sure you leave a gap open to turn the pillow right side out.


When you use iron on adhesive, you need to stitch around to seal it, or else it will peel away from the fabric.

I used a zig-zag stitch because it is supposed to give a little more with stretchy fabrics like fleece.
(You can't see where I pinned in this picture because my camera is a piece of junk, but I left about a 4" gap to turn it right side out.)

Step 4:
Stuff and blind stitch shut.

(To find out how to blind stitch click here and scroll to the end of that tutorial.)
Now your boys will have a nice soft pillow to lay on while they watch the big game! (Next year! HA!)