Garden Floor Pillow

So...I like to have creative outlets. While we were waiting for Ally to come home, I did a lot of work on things for her room - pillows, slipcovers... but since she has been home I've had a hard time finding motivation for projects. Then I came across a website with online crafting contests, and I got inspired. Here's my project entry:

It is a floor pillow that is a play garden! There are four rows of fruits and veggies: strawberries, lettuce, pumpkins and carrots. All the veggies can be "harvested" either by digging them out of their pocket or unfastening their button.

The pillow itself is about 30 inches square and 4 inches tall. It's made of courdoroy to mimic garden rows. And it's really soft!

Here are all the veggies fresh out of the field. They are made of felt, and took a lot of hand sewing - more than I imagined before I began. I made all the patterns for the pieces myself - I used a lot of image searches to look at the real thing and do my best to mimic it in felt. The lettuce has a leaf with a button hole, the strawberries and pumpkins have some yarn tied off to make a button hole, and the carrots slide into pockets on the pillow.

Here is what the garden pillow looks like when all the veggies are gone:


And because it's so big, and we're travelling for the holidays, Ally got to enjoy her present early - and proceeded to jump on the garden and pull some carrots (and lettuce).


I hope that Ally will harvest her own pretend veggies and cook with them in her own pretend kitchen. Then we can lounge together on the big cozy pillow and read some good books.