Rozsamaria: More pillows, more fun!

This is my final pillow post, I promise.  I’ve finished the Christmas presents made from my grandfather’s tshirts.

I made this pillow for my dad’s sister, my aunt M.  She chose the following tshirt:

My grandpa's tshirt

The tshirt had some stains on it.  It may have been one of my grandpa’s work tshirts.

Stains on the tshirt

I had to cut the tshirt relatively close to the design in order to remove the stains, so I cut a larger piece from the back.  I sewed the top and bottom of the square I’d cut from the front to the top and bottom of the larger piece from the back and then adjusted the tube of fabric in order to center the design.

The tube of fabric, adjusted so the design will be centered

The same, from the front

I finished my pillow up.  It was simple.  I sewed up the sides, leaving an opening to insert the pillow, and then I hand-sewed the opening closed.

The finished pillow

The next pillow is for my aunt’s husband, my uncle R.  He chose a R & R railroad tshirt.  My grandpa loved trains and he had many train tshirts.

The R & R railroad tshirt

This tshirt was really simple.  The tshirt was easily the right size for a pillow cover so I didn’t have to do anything special.

Last but not least, Mama and Papa S chose an Alaska train tshirt.

The design on this tshirt was really large.  It’s a map of the Alaska railroad lines.  My biggest concern here was cutting off part of the picture.  I cut the tshirt so that the design would start at the very top of the pillow and I decided to wrap the end of the design onto the back of the pillow.

The finished pillow

The pillow from the top

The sewn pillow cover from the back, without the pillow inserted - note how the map wraps onto the back

Here’s a picture of all five completed pillows:

I hope all of my pillow posts haven’t been too repetitive.  My next post will be something new and different!

Rozsamaria’s Continued Adventures in Pillow-making

Today I have another post about pillow-making.  This time, I made a pillow from one of my Grandpa’s old sweatshirts for my uncle P.  The method was basically the same as last time – turn it inside out, trace the square, cut, and sew – with one complication: the design was close to the neckline of the sweatshirt, so if I’d sewn the square as it was the design would not have been centered on the pillow.

The sweatshirt, turned inside out, with the square marked on it (in orange) - note how close the design is to the shirt collar

The two squares, pinnned together and cut out

I wanted the design to be centered, but it was an easy fix.  I traced, pinned, and cut my squares, and then I sewed the top and bottom edges together.  I unpinned the sides so that I had a tube of fabric and adjusted it so that the design now lay in the center (meaning the seams I’d just sewn were no longer at the top and bottom pf the pillow cover – one now appeared on the front and one on the back).  I sewed the sides, leaving a gap to insert the pillow.  (I apologize for not taking pictures of that.)  Once I turned the pillowcover inside out and put the pillow inside, I picked the closest-matching thread I could find and sewed up the edge.  Finished pillow!

The finished pillow

Spry: ruffled skirt fixer-upper

I split a skirt a bit, a while ago. There, I’ve said it. A khaki-ish pencil-ish skirt, but with a slit in the back. The slit split at the seam, ish.

I made do for a while with fabric glue and a patch behind it, as sewing it up would only cause more of a strain on the fabric. But when that loosened… I just put the skirt aside.

Then I found this ruffle-embellishment tutorial at Cotton & Curls.

The semi-circle to ruffle trick!! How clever! How did I live without it? (I free-handed the circles.)

I sewed the slit more open, to close the split. (This would be a bit too much of an opening for my tastes were I not planning on covering this up.)

bum-vision

I used a feather stitch on some IKEA upholstery-weight fabric, b/c hemming the circle seemed absurdly time-consuming. I used just two layers, rather than going down the whole way.

What do you think? Should the ruffles come all the way down the back? (Having just this much is easy b/c then I don’t have to figure out how to span the ruffles across the gap.)