We all have those old t-shirts in our closets that don’t fit us, and we just don’t have the heart to get rid of them. Turning those t-shirts into pillows is a great way to put them to use again, and if you’re good at it, you even make a few bucks at it, too!
The items you will need to turn your t-shirts into pillows are: a large (or bigger) t-shirt, 14×14 pillow form, cutting mat rotary cutter, ruler and sewing machine.
STEP ONE: CUT THE T-SHIRT
Start buy flattening out the t-shirt on your cutting mat.
You need to get the shirt as flat as possible.
You are going to be making a 14×14 pillow, but you want to cut a 15×15 square to make room for the seems.
Line up your ruler going up and down on the edge of the t-shirt (just inside the sleeve.)
Cut all the way down the shirt, and then do the same thing on the other side
Then, measure 15″ down from the collar of the shirt, and put a tiny dot, or some sort of mark.
Place your ruler straight across the shirt at that point, and cut.
Now,you are going to want to trim the sides of the shirt until you it’s 15″ across, but this can get tricky because you want to make sure the logo is still centered.
STEP TWO: SEWING YOUR SHIRT
Now that you have your 15″x15″ squares cut out of the shirt, (with the shirt laying flat, you cut out the front and back of the shirt at the same time, making two squares) you want to flip them inside out.
Pin your edges so they stay together while sewing.
Start with an edge of the shirt, working with 1/4″ seems.
Sew 3 and 2/3rds of the way around the shirt.
Stick your hand in the hole that is left (because on the last edge of the shirt you only sewed 2/3rds of the side, you have a hole 1/3rd of the length of the t-shirt) and pull it right-side-out again.
STEP THREE: STUFFING YOUR SHIRT
Now, take your pillow form and stuff it in the hole. Make sure you get the corners.
Once the form is inside the shirt, take a needle and thread and hand sew the hole closed.
Now, you have yourselves a finished t-shirt pillow.
You can go further than just the shirts in your closet, too. I go to thrift stores and buy shirts for next to nothing, then go to the craft store and buy pillow forms. It costs right around $8 to make one pillow, and I sell them in my store for $20.
I hope you found this article to be helpful. Thanks for reading.
