Sock Monkey Kids' Travel Pillow

Have you seen these seat belt pillows from Super Jenn? After seeing how comfy her kids looked, I knew I should totally make one for the car ride down to the Outer Banks for my three year old. And on a side note, with the HORRIBLE traffic we hit about just before we crossed over onto the islands, it took us 14 hours to get there. It was supposed to take us 11 hours. Sitting in three hour traffic for the last 15 miles was NOT FUN. Anyway...

This travel pillow was a completely free project! I almost forget about the miserable car ride when I think of the word free.

I already had the sock monkey fabric on hand. I had thrifted two sock monkey pillowcases awhile back and had a little fabric left after making a handmade swaddler for the baby.


Aww... Isn't he cute? He's a month old in this photo.
Now he's nine months old!

I followed Super Jenn's awesome tutorial, but I think I would have made the fabric flaps that go around the seat belt a little larger. I never did put velcro on mine because I don't think my flaps are large enough to get around the seat belt. That's okay though, because I could see my three year old throwing a tantrum on the interstate when he didn't want the pillow on his lap anymore. The way I did it, the pillow just rested on him so he could use it or not. He was free to remove it from his lap and throw it on his baby brother when he was done with it. Not adding the velcro also addressed the safety concern that some people had... although really, I don't think the thin flap of fabric that would have been under the seat belt would cause a safety issue. That flap is thinner than a sweatshirt or jacket!

To fill the pillow, I used a combination of thrifted polyfil and t-shirt scraps. I'd say the pillow was a huge success, and in a year or so, I'm going to have to make another one so that boy #2 has one too!