Pajama Eaters

At the beginning of December, I was trying to decide what to get for my two little nephews (a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old) for Christmas and rather spontaneously decided to make their gifts! I know. Adding things to my to-do list at the last minute seems to be a particular specialty of mine.

I first bookmarked the pattern (by Sew Fearless) for these Pajama Eaters a few years ago, but like many things I bookmark, I never got around to making one back then. They’re basically pillows with arms and legs, and an extra layer on top to form a pocket/storage compartment that you access by unzipping the mouth. I thought they’d make fun gifts for my nephews so I got right to work.

For Lucas the ninja turtle-loving 3-year-old, I totally catered to his favorite characters! The pattern actually calls for the inside of the mouth to be red or pink — you know, mouth colored — but I decided to go with more ninja turtles because why not? For Thomas, I went with minions.

I made the mistake of buying difficult zippers. I liked how chunky they were, and bought them without realizing they were separating zippers (i.e. you can fully unzip it, like you can do with a jacket zipper, instead of the zipper having a stop at one end like on a purse or bag). Separating zippers don’t have any extra zipper tape on the bottom end, so I had to do things a bit differently than instructed, but fortunately I was able to make them work.

Overall, these were pretty easy to make. The most difficult parts were easing the bottom of each foot onto the “tube” of fabric that formed each leg and just finagling the various stuffing-filled parts through my sewing machine.

My mom told me they were a hit with the boys, so hooray!