Railroad Crossing Pillows

My son LOVES trains and railroad crossings and so when I saw a railroad crossing pillow in the Land of Nod catalog (a place where I've found great inspiration for projects), I decided to give it a try (sans pattern). I also attempted piping for the first time, which I've been wanting to do for a while.

The red pillow below is my first RR pillow. I used red fleece, yellow felt, and black cotton fabric. The back has this awesome train print, but, for some reason, I didn't take a picture of that. Anyway, I think it turned out pretty well even though the piping looks pretty rough up close (I covered white piping with black fabric -- for the next time, I just went out and bought black piping! Much easier).

I decided to try another pillow, and this time I let my son pick the fabrics from our stash. He selected yellow cotton for one side, pink fleece for the other side, and a fushia-colored fleece for the sides. The R's are again made from felt.

Here's the front and back. For some reason, the cotton (yellow) side looks really lumpy. But the fleece (pink) side is truer to the circular shape I intended.

I finished it up after my son went to sleep and then stuck it in his bed overnight. When he awoke in the morning, you could hear him saying, "My railroad crossing pillow! You worked on it!" with such glee that I knew every stitch was worth it. And it didn't matter if it has lumps. :-)