Goldie Dolly Pillow

One of my friends had a baby a couple weeks ago and I wanted to make her something sweet for her nursery. Most of my friends assume I’ll bring them some type of clothing, but I like to change it up from time to time and sew them something a little bit different. So I made her baby girl, Violet, this Goldie Dolly Pillow that I think will be a fun addition to her nursery.

My friend, Kate (See Kate Sew), created this darling ‘Doll Fabric‘ for Riley Blake Designs and when I saw that the line featured a printed doll panel, I remembered a pillow I made from a few years ago. The original pillow, called the Lolly Dolly Pillow, also featured a printed doll panel, but I constructed that pillow using the entire doll. Since Kate’s doll panel was much larger, I decided it would be cute to just use the head portion.

To create just the face on the pillow, I had to cut the head off of the doll body (which just felt kind of weird…..because cutting the heads off of things just doesn’t seem natural). I also used one of the bows included on the panel. I thought about using two and sewing them onto the pigtails, but it was covering up too much of the cute face. So, instead, I just sewed one to the top of the head.

For the face, I used the back of the head included on the panel as well. I placed both head pieces right sides together and sewed all the way around, leaving a 2″-3″ gap at the bottom of the face. I clipped the curves and corners, turned it right side out and pressed. I made sure to press the area I left open in line with the rest of the chin area. Then I traced the face onto some double sided fusible interfacing, cut it out and ironed it to the back of the face. I peeled off the paper backing and pressed the face to the center pillow fabric. Then I topstitched all the way around the face to secure it in place.

The Doll Fabric line includes some other really sweet prints. I particularly love the colorful dot that I used as the side panels for the pillow. I wanted a long and narrow pillow for some reason and I love how this turned out. I had the gathered eyelet in one of my trim jars and the ecru color was perfect with the dots. I used the same print as the pink center of the pillow on the back, but I used the pale blue instead.

I sewed the bow according to the panel instructions and topstitched it to the front of the pillow prior to sewing the front and the back of the pillow together. The pillow is stuffed with your basic fiberfill stuffing and is nice and squishy.

The doll panel also includes a boy doll. How cute would these pillows be in boy/girl twins rooms? You could have the girl one on one bed and the boy one on the other. SO cute!! There are a couple different panels with dolls with different hair/skin colors, so you can choose which one works best for you. Kate actually sewed up one of these dolls for Josephine when she was just about 6 months old and she absolutely loves it. I don’t think the pictures really show you the scale of the fabric. The head on these dolls is quite large, making it super whimsical with the skinny body.

I hope my friend and her sweet, new baby like the Goldie Dolly Pillow I sewed up for her! If you are interested in step-by-step instructions for how I created the original Lolly Dolly Pillow, you can check those out HERE. It would be really easy to do with this doll panel, you’ll just need to increase the overall pillow size to accommodate for the larger doll. You can find Kate’s doll panel for sale HERE. Thanks so much for stopping by!

And until next time…..