This past weekend, I took my two girls on a road trip to South Carolina for a family reunion. In true me fashion, it wasn’t until the day before we were planning to be on the road for 9-10 hours that I realized I didn’t have a travel pillow for Skyler. With such a long drive ahead of us, it was a given that the girls would be asleep for a good chunk of that time. Like most toddlers, Skyler’s head rolls forward and sits awkwardly when she falls asleep in her car. For short trips, she’s uncomfortable but it’s not too bad; however, for a trip of this length, I knew her neck would be in bad shape during her few hours of naps. Of course, I had just missed the free one-day shipping on Prime, and it’s pretty impossible to find a toddler-size travel pillow in stores (no time for shipping), especially one that supports their chin to keep their head from rolling directly forward. It was at that moment, at 5pm when I should have been getting ready to pack, that I decided to make her a travel pillow.
Let me start by saying, I am NO seamstress, nor am I anyone who sews often… just a mama who loves to craft (usually at the most inconvenient times). I started with this pattern from Mud Puddles & Daisy’s because I liked how it was slimmer in the back to not push the neck forward, and larger on the sides that go around the neck to support the chin. I wanted to alter this, though, to wrap around the chin a bit for added front-head-roll prevention.
Here is what you’ll need to whip up one of these neck pillows:
- Pattern (print from below)
- Fabric – I used a fabric that my mom had lying around, which had 1-way stretch. You could also use use fabric without stretch, which would result in a firmer pillow that’s a bit less flexible. Non-stretch fabric is also easier to work with on a sewing machine. I can’t vouch for which would be best though, since I haven’t tried non-stretch fabric yet. Do what’s easiest for you.
- Sewing Machine – You could do this by hand as well, but it would take significantly more time
- Matching thread
- Straight pins
- Paper scissors
- Fabric scissors (not necessary, but recommended)
- Poly-Fil
- Needle
- About 90 minutes to 2 hours to spare, if you’re a novice like me. More if you’ll be sewing by hand instead of machine.
Step 1 – Print Pattern
Print the pattern below on three regular 8”X 11” sheets of paper (one page each). DO NOT “shrink to fit” it all on one page – just print it as-is… it may extend to 2 pages, but you can either discard the second page or only print “page 1” of each.
Step 2 – Cut Out Pattern
Use your paper scissors to cut out the pattern along the bold and dotted line. Be sure to stay towards the outer edge of the line on the pattern to ensure that your pillow is large enough for your toddler.
Step 3 – Pin Pattern to Fabric
You will want to work with folded fabric. If your fabric is new and purchased off of a bolt, it will already be folded; however, if you’re working with leftover fabric that you already have or with small pieces of fabric that you have purchased, you will need to fold the fabric in half right-side-out.
Place your cut-out pattern onto the folded fabric and pin each piece down in several places covering all sides and making sure to include both layers of fabric in the pin. The smaller piece that says “fold” with arrows pointing is the only piece that you will want to put against the fold. Put the side with the arrows directly onto the fold. I refer to this piece as the “center piece”, “n-shaped piece”, and “U-shaped piece” throughout the rest of this tutorial.
The other two pieces (also referred to as “arms”), should not be cut on the fold. You can put them elsewhere on the fabric, but there should still be two layers since the fabric is folded over. Be sure to pick up both layers in your pins for all pattern pieces.
Step 4 – Cut Fabric Along the Pattern
Being careful not to cut into the pattern, use your fabric scissors to cut along the pattern, making sure to cut both layers of the fabric each time. Cut directly along the pattern (all seam allowances are included in the pattern, so no need to free-hand additional space outside of the pattern).
VERY IMPORTANT – you will need to pin and cut the center piece that goes along the center-fold twice so that you have two n-shaped pieces. The other two pattern pieces you only need to pin and cut once – this will yield enough for the two “arms” of your pillow.
If you have patterned fabric (i.e. polka dots, zig zag, characters, etc.) and want to be fancy, you can take a little extra time and line up the fabric pattern so that they have a continuous look when finished. This takes a lot of time, especially for a novice like myself. I was pretty rushed doing this project, so I didn’t bother lining up the pattern on the fabric.
Step 5 – Pin Together Each Side of Pillow
Once you have all the pieces cut, you will want to unfold one of the folded pieces and lay it flat in a U-shape with the right side of the fabric facing up.
Then, take the shorter “arm” piece and lay it on top of the left side of the center piece with the wrong side of the fabric facing up. Be sure to line up the top straight edge to the straight edge on the U-shaped piece.
Place several pins vertically along the straight edge to hold them together.
Next, take the longer J-shaped “arm” piece and lay it on top of the right side of the center piece with the wrong side of the fabric facing up. Again, be sure to line up the top straight edge to the straight edge on the U-shaped piece.
Place several pins vertically along the straight edge to hold them together.
Step 6 – Repeat all of Step 5 with your Remaining Cut Fabric
This time, you will put the shorter “arm” piece against the right side of the center piece, and you will place the J-shaped “arm” piece on the left side of the center piece.
Step 7 – Sew On your Arms
Take your two pinned-together sides to your sewing machine, and sew along the pinned straight edges on each piece. Leave a ¼-inch seam along this edge. You could do this by hand, if you’d prefer. Just be sure to get your seam as straight as possible and maintain the ¼” allowance.
If using non-stretch fabric, you can simply do a straight stitch; however, if your fabric has any kind of stretch, you will want to use a zig-zag stitch so that your thread doesn’t pop when stuffing the pillow.
PLEASE be sure to test your machine settings on a scrap piece of fabric. It stinks having to remove stitching from your good cuts of fabric, or even worse, messing them up and having to make new cuts.
Step 8 (OPTIONAL) – Iron your Seams
This step is not required, but it helps everything lay flat once you put your front and back of your pillow together. I ironed on the wrong side of the fabric to crease the seam in one direction (I did upwards). I did this for the front and back pieces of the pillow. The photo above on the left is before ironing the seam, and the one n the right is after. You can see how much flatter the fabric lays.
Step 9 – Pin Together your Front and Back
With the wrong-side of the fabric inward, match up your front and back of your pillow, and pin them in place all the way around.
You will want to leave about a 3”-4” opening at the top center of the pillow so that you can stuff it later. I mark my start and stop spots with pins in a different direction than the other pins so that, while I’m at the machine, I won’t accidentally keep going and close that opening.
Step 10 – Sew Together your Front and Back
Take your pillow to the sewing machine and sew all the way around the pillow except the opening. Again, you could also do this by hand if you have a little more time to spare. This time, you will want to use a ½-inch seam allowance all the way around. Again, if you are using non-stretch fabric, a straight stitch should be fine. If you are using stretchy fabric, use a zig-zag.
Take your time! This pillow is pretty curvy, and for a beginner that makes it easy to get an uneven seam. Try to keep your seam at the ½-inch marker on your machine along the entire perimeter of the pillow.
Step 11 – Notch your Seam
Take your fabric scissors (or regular scissors) and make notches at about every inch all the way around the pillow. Your notches should go up to the seam that you just created, but NOT cross the seam or cut the thread. This will allow the fabric inside of the pillow to overlap itself instead of bunching up when you turn the fabric right-side-out.
Step 12 – Turn your Pillow Right-Side-Out
Using your opening, turn your fabric so that the right side of the fabric is now facing out.
Step 13 – Stuff your Pillow
Using your Poly-Fil, begin stuffing pieces into the pillow. I had to use my finger to really get the stuffing in evenly and firmly into the ends of the arms. The ends of the arms are your most important parts because this is the chin support, so you want to make sure it’s nice and firm throughout the pillow and especially the arms.
Step 14 – Close your Opening
Once you have the pillow stuffed firmly, you will need to fold in the edges of the opening ½ of an inch and sew it together. I recommend that you sew this by hand, as it would be difficult to get this on the machine with the stuffing inside of the pillow. I sewed this by hand with an invisible stitch so that the space where the opening was would be less noticeable; however, you could simply pin the whole closed and sew on top of the fabric as close to the edge as possible if you don’t mind the seam being noticeable. The invisible stitch was a little more difficult because you can’t pin it closed, so I had to add stuffing as I sewed to ensure that this section of the pillow was stuffed firm enough.
Step 15 – Enjoy!
That’s it! Although it seems like a lot of steps, this is a pretty simple project. Here are a couple of photos of my little model wearing the pillow in her carseat 🙂
Awake 
“Asleep” 😛 
Really Asleep
If you do this project, I would love to see how it turned out! Please send me pictures in DM (Direct Message) or post and tag me on Instagram @JaymesCorner.
