December 5, 2010

REpurposing - A Sweatshirt Becomes a Pillow

Years ago, in the midst of my life as a teacher, I acquired quite a collection of holiday sweatshirts.  What can I say? It was elementary school. Elementary school teachers lose their minds early on and then begin dressing strangely.  Surely, you've noticed.

At one point, I tried to get crafty with my sweatshirts and made a few that, for whatever reason, I hung onto.  I no longer wear them.  I have no desire to wear them.  I don't foresee ever changing my mind on that, so why have I hung onto them?  I had them packed up with my holiday stuff, and instead of looking at them and then packing them back up, I decided to turn a few of them into Christmas pillows.

Here's the result of my first sweatshirt RE-Purpose:


I pulled out an old pillow, a few bits of fabric to consider incorporating and the sweatshirt.




 The appliqued Santa was still in good shape after many washings, but a little1980's country-ish, which, by the way, is about when he was probably created.




I cut out a rectangle from the sweatshirt and zig-zagged it onto canvas painter's drop cloth fabric.  The canvas had been washed and prepared for use ages ago.




I decided to use green and cream toile left over from a previous project for the piping.




For the back of the fabric I used leftover bits of the sweatshirt.  I made it so that it overlapped in back, like a bed pillow sham. I cut the sweatshirt fabric in such a way that the stretchy bottom of the sweatshirt (I know there's a name for that and I can't think of it right now) was on the overlap edges.  That turned out pretty nice - no hemming, plus the stretchy bit keeps everything in place well.  DO take note of the bits of fur on the green sweatshirt.  I had sewing assistance from some of my four legged friends.


For now, it's on a family room chair, but I am thinking about moving it to the porch.  

If I were starting a Christmas pillow from scratch today, I'd no doubt make something very different.  This one is not really my style, but I feel pretty good about giving my old sweatshirt a new life. I do love RE-purposing!  I am also enjoying looking at my handiwork from years ago.  


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