Letters to Santa Pillow

This holiday season create a pillow that does more than just look pretty. Make a “letters to Santa pillow” that can stash a child’s letter to Santa and even hold fun surprises from your “Elf of the Shelf”! The finished size of this project is a 12″ square, perfect for tiny hands to hold and enjoy, plus it’s in an easy to remove slipcover format… just in case it gets dirty or you chose to swap out your look when the next season arrives.


Letter to Santa Pillow Tutorial
Materials to create a letters to Santa pillow:

  •  3/8 of 45″ material (more may be needed for print\design matching)
  • 12″ pillow form
  • Scissors & Ruler or Rotary Cutter and Mat
  • Thread to Match
  • Cut away stabilizer
  • Embroidery Thread
  • Embroidery design of your choice
  • Your sewing machine, I sew on a BERNINA 580 

Letter to Santa Pillow

Cutting Instructions for the letters to Santa pillow:       

  • 2, 8 x 13″ rectangles for the pocket & pocket lining
  • 1, 13 x 13″ square for pillow front
  • 1, 7 ½ x 13″ rectangle for pillow back
  • 1, 9 x 13″ rectangle for pillow back

Embroider your chosen design on front of one pocket rectangle. (Shown in photo: Embroidery Library’s Christmas Flight Silhouette Scene)

Letters to Santa Pillow Tutorial - embroidery

Instructions to sew a letters to Santa pillow:

Seam allowances are ½ inch unless otherwise noted.

Step 1

Place pocket & lining, right sides together and sew top edge, only. Turn so that pocket & lining are now wrong sides together and press. Topstitch finished edge of pocket, if desired.

Letter to Santa Pillow Tutorial - sew top edge

Step 2

Lay pocket on the bottom edge of pillow, matching raw edges on the sides and bottom. Baste pocket in place.

Letter to Santa Pillow Tutorial - Basting

Step 3

On the 7 ½ x 13″ rectangle: on one, long edge, fold under ½″ to the wrong side and press. Fold this strip over itself and press again. Sew close to the edge. This will give a finished edge to the back of your pillow slipcover. Repeat this step along the long edge for the 9 x 13″ strip of material.

Letter to Santa Pillow Tutorial - pressing

Step 4

Place the 13″ square right side up. With wrong side up, lay the smaller rectangle (which now measures 6 ½ x 13″) on top of the pillow square matching raw edges, followed by the wider panel (which now measures 8 x 13″), wrong side up. The rectangles are designed to overlap so that when the pillow form is inserted, there is no gaping in the back. Pin in place.

Letter to Santa Pillow Tutorial - slipcover prep

Step 5

Sew around entire pillow. Without cutting your stitching, clip the corners and turn right side out.

Letter to Santa Pillow Tutorial - Sew around entire pillow

Step 6

Place your pillow form inside your slipcover and enjoy!Letter to Santa Pillow Tutorial - place pillow form inside the slipcover

Letter to Santa Pillow Tutorial

Our December 15 Gift For You

Today’s gift is a BERNINA Beauty Set including a pocket mirror, BERNINA red lipstick and BERNINA red nail polish to one awesome WeAllSew fan. All you have to do is post a comment below answering the following question:

Did you ever write a letter to Santa?

A winner will be chosen at random on December 16, 2015 and announced later this week!

Good luck!

Congratulations to our WeAllSew reader “sewretired786”, the winner of the December 15 gift. Enjoy!

11 days until Christmas

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