Teal T-Shirt Pillow

Over the summer, we’ve been slowly going through our youngest’s clothes to determine what still fits and what doesn’t. We have a 13-gallon (50 liter) trash bag full of items that are ready to be donated.

As the one who receives all of the hand-me downs, many of the items aren’t to our daughter’s taste; it’s almost a relief to have them no longer taking up drawer space. And, of course, there are some pieces with designs that are too childish for her now. But a few still hold some appeal, if only they were her size.

I set aside a few tops to upcycle. Since my sewing background is mainly in quilting, you’d probably expect a memory quilt. While she likes the shirts, they’re not quite at the level of holding special memories.

They are, however, strong enough designs in their own right to become stand-alone projects.

T-Shirt to Pillow

First up was a long-sleeved T-shirt with sequins set in horizontal stripes across the front. It really wanted to become a throw pillow.

I cut the shirt along the seams, then ironed 13-inch (33 cm) squares of non-woven fusible interfacing to the wrong sides of the front and back shirt pieces. After cutting the shirt pieces down to the size of the interfacing, I marked the corners to make them rounded.

With right sides together, I machine-sewed most of the perimeter with a 1/2-inch (1 cm) seam allowance. I left about 5 inches (13 cm) unsewn on one side, to turn the pillow right-side out and insert a 12-inch (30.5 cm) pillow form, then closed the opening with a hand-sewn ladder stitch.

The entire project took no more than two hours — most of that was spent steaming the interfacing onto the fabric. I’m looking forward to making similar projects from the other saved T-shirts.

What I'm not looking forward to is phase two in my daughter’s room: going through the old toys.