My 13-year-old daughter is obsessed with cacti. She wants to buy every cactus she sees, and she wants everything she sees with a cactus print on it. For Christmas, I decided I wanted to make her a cactus pillow.

I found an adorable cactus-shaped pillow pattern created by Whistle and Ivy for Darice. She designed it using chunky yarn, but I wanted to use the same yarn for both of the pillows, so my shaped one is smaller than hers, but perfect size to go with the graph pillow that I designed.

I wanted a big enough pillow for her to use on her bed, and this whole set was perfect for her. She has anxiety problems, especially when she’s not at home, so when she went and stayed at her friend’s house last week the little shaped pillow was perfect size for her to tuck in her backpack. She said the little hairs on it helped her anxiety because tightening them helped with her need to fidget. So, two birds, one stone.

Want to make your own cactus graph pillow? Here’s what I used for mine.

Materials needed (with affiliate links):

18 x 18 inch pillow form

Loops and Threads Impeccable yarn in soft rose, fern, deep forest and soft fern.

J (6mm) crochet hook

For the back of the pillow, I wanted stripes. I really loved the way the pink and the greens looked together. My daughter actually saw me working on the back and said it reminded her of a watermelon. She had no idea I was working on something for her.

I did the back of it first, in order to figure out how big it needed to be so I could create the graph for the front.

I tend to crochet rather tight stitches. I used a J hook, but if you crochet loose stitches you may need to use an I hook to get the right gauge.

Gauge: 7 (hdc) stitches and 5 rows = 2 inches square

I did 60 hdc’s across, and did 52 rows to get it the size I needed to cover the pillow. The pattern I used was 4 rows of soft rose, 2 rows of deep forest, 4 rows of fern, 2 rows of soft fern, then repeated it ending with 4 rows of soft rose. You can do this pillow in any colors that you choose, and do whatever pattern you want on the back, as long as you do 60 hdc’s across and 52 rows, and make sure your gauge is the same as mine by adjusting the hook size you’re using.

This is the graph I created for the front of the pillow:

I really liked the way the pink looked with the green, and I liked the bright colors. But you could do this in any colors you want. I think it would look great in more muted colors.

Once I finished both sides, I did a sc around both to sew them together and inserted the pillow form before I closed up the top. Then I added fringe around the outside, and added some little “thorns” to the cactus.

I hope you liked my cactus pillow. If you use this graph to make any cactus pillows of your own, be sure to share a photo with me on Facebook.