Recycled T-Shirt Pillows

Good news everyone! You no longer have to sleep in a bed full of rock pillows, because your savior has arrived. Let me introduce you to a passion of mine......Pillow Making.

I've been making pillows for my friends and family for a while, but for my big public reveal I needed pillows with a twist.

These pillows are special because most of the fabrics came right out of my clothes wardrobe. I was cleaning out my closet and was faced with a terrifying dilemma- how could I simply get rid of  all these radical t-shirts and stuff?! The answer was clear, I needed to make them into pillows.

After successfully making a few and seeing the enormously positive reception they received, I went crazy and made like another set of 20 recycled t-shirt pillows from stuff in my closet and things I scavenged.  Here are the results, all for sale.

Presenting... The Pillows

"Betty Boop" Pocket Pillow #1

This was the first pillow I made from a rather large nursing scrub I found at the thrift store. The pink sides are made from some scrapped polyester I also found at the same store, what luck. If you'd ask Betty Boop, I think she'd say these fabrics were totally a match made in heaven.

Also, check out the sweet built-in pocket on the front of the pillow. The uses for them are endless- my mom suggested you could use it as a place to put your tissues on Lifetime Movie Night. I thought it would be better off used as a cellphone keeper...  try over sleeping your next nap when the phone alarm is ringing right next to your head!

This pillow weighs 1.4 pounds.

Height: 18.5"   
Width: 2.5"
Length: 15"

SOLD

"UFC Fight Night" Skull Pillow

Side view of the UFC pillow.
The back is made from the rest of the
shirt, which is a plain brown color.

I didn't want to leave the boys out of all this pillow fun, so here's one of my attempts at a pillow built for a man. Doesn't it just ooze masculinity? If the skulls weren't tough enough, it has the UFC logo on it and even says "FIGHT NIGHT" right on the pillow. You could probably get Chuck Liddell to punch this pillow and it wouldn't even fall apart. It would probably just be very severely dented.
The sides are made out of soft black fleece. This was a fairly new t-shirt to begin with, so it's still very soft as well. I think that makes this pillow a pretty deadly mix of cuddly and badass.

 This pillows weighs 1.8 pounds.

 Height: 17.5"

Width: 4"

Length: 15.5"

                      

SOLD

Ladies- if you think this pillows seems a little sexist, I just have to say this pillow could quite possibly be made for you as well. The shirt used to belong to my mom, after all.

Embellished "Pink Cafe" Pillow

Another pillow made from a thrift shop shirt. This was a medium lady's dress top. The print depicts this quaint little cafe scene which wraps around the entire pillow. On the front side it has these shiny little sequins sewed on... definitely wouldn't suggest sleeping on this side unless you want a cafe imprinted onto your face! (Actually, that sounds kind of cool.)

I almost didn't have enough of the shirt's fabric to finish this pillow, so I had to patchwork the sides together so that they'd fit. As an unintentional but cool result, this pillow transformed from a square shape to kinda round! It's definitely unique, to say the least.

Shiny Shiny, shiny bits of sequin.

Height: 17.5 "

Width: 4.5"

Length: 17"

This pillow weighs 1.4 pounds.

SOLD

 

"Zoo York City" Pillow

This is definitely one of my personal favorite pillows that I've made thus far. The print is just full of skulls, grime and other cool things. Too bad the t-shirt was a Boys XL or I would so be wearing it right now.

Besides being cool and covered and skulls, it's very soft,  fluffy and comfy..  it would probably make a good neck pillow, too... If someone doesn't get this pillow soon I'm totally going to keep it for myself, seriously. 


Height: 9"
Width: 2.5"
Length: 20"

This pillow weighs 12.2 ounces.

Sold

 

"Bubba Gump Shrimp Co" (Charleston) pillow

I don't know anyone who hasn't seen Forest Gump yet... and if you haven't, I guess you're just gonna have to miss out on this cultural reference because I'm not explaining it. There is a Bubba Gump restaurant right here in Charleston, but I got this awesome shirt from the neighborhood thrift store instead. I enjoy utilizing "localized" things in my pillows because of their rarity... Charleston is the only place in the world you could buy a shirt like this, unless you cheat and order it off of Ebay or something. So in a sense, this pillow carries a little bit of history and travel mileage with it.

The sides are made of brown felt and the print is on a cotton tee.










Height: 15"        
Width: 3"
Length: 14"


This pillow weighs 12.2 oz.

   

Sold

"Wild Cat" pillow

This is definitely one of the "big cats" of my pillow collection, even larger than a standard sleeping pillow. I know the print has a tiger on it, but I was just dying to use this cheetah/leopard fabric, which is soft and kind of fuzzy like a real wild cat's fur. The sides are plain black and the print was taken from an old workout t-shirt.. its the eye of the tiger, get it?

Height:  17"
Width: 3"
Length: 21"

This pillow weighs 1.6 pounds.

SOLD

 

Everybody knows that kissing an Irish person will probably just lead to eventually fighting them. At least, that's the motto I've lived my life by. Either way, I still think this little green Irish pillow is pretty charming. The sides are made from a very shiny and soft polyester ribbon I got from Wal-Mart's remnants section. The print was from my mom's closet again... If you haven't noticed, we come from a long line of angry, short potato eaters. 


This pillow weighs 8.6 ounces.

Height: 13"   
Width: 2"
Length: 15.5"

SOLD

 

"Betty Boop" Pocket Pillow #2

This is the second pillow I made from that giant thrift store scrub. For your convenience, it also has a built in pocket. The difference between this pillow and the first one is that it's slightly smaller and that it uses the Betty Boop fabric on all sides instead of utilizing the polyester. I can proudly say that there were very few scraps of the nurse scrub left after I made it into pillows...awesome.


Height: 15.5"

Width: 4"

Length: 14.5"

This pillow weighs 1 pound.

Sold

"Drink Cheerwine" Pillow

Cheerwine, the weird cherry-flavored cousin of Coke and Pepsi! This would be perfect for someone who is a fan of Cheerwine... I gotta say, their fans are never lukewarm, they are always so die hard about their favorite drink. The sides are made of a bandana like red and white fabric, and the back is plain white.


Height: 12.5" 
Width: 3"
Length: 17"

This pillow weighs 13.4 ounces.

SOLD

"Wicked Witch" Pillow

 Okay, I have to come clean. This pillow was not made out of a recycled t-shirt. The print came from some absolutely wicked fleece that I found in the craft section of Wal-Mart... what a good find, if you ask me! If you love retro things, this pillow will definitely be right up your ally. The sides are made out of green and yellow striped fabric, it kind of reminds me of the striped socks on the witch that gets the house dropped on her in Oz. Consider it in memoriam.

Height: 14"    
Width: 2"
Length: 16"

This pillow weighs 13 ounces.

SOLD

"Burt and Ernie BFF's" pillow

"You're my best friend." - Queen

This is probably another one my favorites! This pillow is humungous, probably one of the largest one I've made so far, so it's perfect for sharing with your friends. To make it even better, I used an awesome junior's Sesame Street t-shirt as the print. Ironically the print seemed really small when it was on the shirt, so small I had to include the arm caps in with the print (check the top corners), but once it was transformed into a pillow it seems so huge! The sides are a purple fabric and the back is this really nice textured plaid fabric. I really like how it feels as the surface of a pillow, very comfy.




Height: 20"
Width: 4"
Length: 17"

This pillow weighs 1.6 pounds.

SOLD

"Little Miss Sunshine" Pillow

Another great throwback (throw pillow?) from childhood. Little Miss Sunshine and the rest of the Roger Hargreaves' "Mr. Men and Little Miss" sereies were definitely books that were read to me a lot as a kid. This is a super cute pillow, another one I can boast used almost the entire junior's t-shirt. For some reason, juniors shirts fabric make for the softest and squishest of my pillows. Us girls have good taste in fibers, I guess!

Height: 15"   
Width: 3"
Length: 18"

This pillow weighs 14 ounces.

SOLD

"Homage to AnvilTee's" Pillow

This pillow is so awesomely meta.  According to its tag, this thrift store t-shirt is made out of "66% recycled material" to begin with... So now that I've recycled it again, how has that percentage changed? Maybe someone savvy at math can figure that one out. In the mean time, I love being able to re purpose something that had such a great purpose to begin with. That's what this whole t-shirt pillow series has been about! Like the pillow says.. "I am part of the solution."

Sierra Club and AnvilRecycled Tees teamed up to spread their message
about waste reduction, and I'm now doing my piece by breathing
life back into something that was close to the edge of obscurity.
Everything goes full circle.

Height: 13"
Width: 2.5"
Length: 15.5"


This pillow weighs 14 ounces.

Sold

 

"Lego Batman" Pillow

The corner that was "chewed up" in the sewing machine.

Ahhhh what an adorable print! Personally I LOVE the Lego Batman game, it's insanely fun. However, I think the Joker was playing some sort of cruel joke on me while I was making this pillow because it gave me so much trouble! One of the corners got severely damaged during construction and in result the fabric got all chewed up in the sewing machine. There were a lot of holes, I managed to patch them up but the perfectionist in me will always be a little bit mad at this pillow.
Because of these issues, the price has been reduced accordingly.

Height: 17"

Width: 2.5"

Length: 14"

This pillow weighs 15.3 ounces. 

Sold

 

"Orange Cheetohs" Pillow

Anyone hungry for some Cheetohs? This pillow is pretty delicious. It would be the perfect pillow to rest your head on while laying on the couch, watching tv and munching on your favorite cheese flavored snack. The sides are made out of soft yellow fleece and the print is from a standard cotton t-shirt.

Height: 13"
Width: 3"
Length: 15.5"

This pillow weighs 14 ounces. 

Sold

 

 

"300 Movie" Pillow

Another really tough pillow featuring prints from the movie Frank Miller inspired movie 300.  Historical Roman and Greek stories are totally all the rage right now... This would be perfect for a Spartacus or Rome fan too, I bet. The sides are made from a sturdy black fabric and the front and back of a men's cotton t-shirt makes the body of this pillow.
 
Height: 17.5"
Width: 3"
Length: 14"

This pillow weighs 13.6 ounces.

SOLD

"Spoletto 2003" Pillow

This was one last really interesting find from the thrift store. It's a Spoletto shirt from 2003. If you didn't know, Spoletto is an annual arts festival that happens right here in Charleston. The print is so unusual. After spending a lot of time looking at it during the construction process, I've really come to appreciate its meaning more. To me, this is a picture of a woman that is expressing pure joy and uninhibited freedom while enjoying the warmth of a nice meal and good company. How can life be better than that?

The back of the pillow is a tan brown color and the sides are
made from the same cheetah fabric as the "Wild Cat" pillow.

Height: 17""    

Width: 3"

Length: 18"

This pillow weighs 15 ounces.

SOLD

 

 

Final Words

These pillows are soft, fluffy, and full of love. I also must admit that they are sturdy as hell- they are definitely meant to last after much wear and tear. I have made a few of these pillows over the years for my friends and family, and I think that they were all surprised how long their pillows have endured.

 Most were afraid to wash them in the machine, but I actually encourage you to run your pillow through the washer and dryer when you receive it. Not saying I have "Dirty Pillows" or something, but running it through your machines will get it all  squishy and tenderized for your lounging. They kind of change form over time anyways, depending on how the person uses it. Sometimes the pillow becomes very flat and compressed, and other times they get all lumpy and malleable. The choice will be yours!

BTW, You may notice that some of them have adorable price tags attached. These price tags are mostly for when I'm presenting my stuff at shows and craft fairs.  By default, I will take the tag off of your pillow before I send it. However, if you want to keep the fancy tag on, please specify in your Paypal order and I'll happily comply.

Revamping a raggedy pillow (Harry Potter edition!)

I would say that most people have a favorite pillow. Imagine yours..It's the comfiest to sit on, it gets you to sleep at night, and its probably the best food tray you've ever used. And like most of our favorite things, it's immortal. Well, so we'd like to assume at least. Unfortunately, years of wear and tear will eventually deteriorate any item you use every day, even old faithful pillows. So what happens then? Do you dare throw out your tattered but uber comfy pillow? Don't do it! That would be a waste of a wonderful opportunity to give your loyal friend a brand new makeover. All you need is a seam ripper and a little bit of sewing magic and your pillow will keep kickin' for another 10 years or more.

 My mom inspired me to do this project when she pointed out that our living room pillow was in bad shape. And honestly, that was an understatement. Firstly, I must say it's the raddest of pillows..(Geek out time!) It's an exclusive and official Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone pillow, one you can only order from those "fancy pants" magazines. It features a very young Harry Potter, right when his zany wizardy adventure was just starting. We acquired this in the heat of the first Harry Potter craze, nearly 14 years ago. This thing has history attatched to it, so there's certainly no way we were getting rid of it!

Anyways, this pillow had seen its better days. Here are the pics from right after I gutted it. It was seriously this bad before I even opened it up:

As you can see, the cool Harry Potter print is still in amazing quality but the back is dry rotten and full of holes

The corners and edges were completely shredded. 

Holes where the print was poking through the back! The horror..

 So, clearly I had to start from scratch when it came to the back of the pillow. Fortunately, the gorgeously weaved Harry Potter print on the front was still in really great shape, so I didn't have to worry about repairing it. All I needed to do was separate the trashy back fabric from the print.

I used my little tool called the Seam Ripper to do this. You could easily just use scissors and cut away the edging to your pillow, but carefully ripping out the thread seams improves the likelihood that your print wouldn't be damaged or cut off in any way.

Admittedly, I am still somewhat a novice at sewing and only recently discovered the seam ripper.

My trusty mini seam ripper.

 How did I ever possibly undo stitches without one before?  Oh right, usually I just tried to rip out the unwanted stitches by hand, tore my project and had to start over. The seam ripper has saved me many of times now since I "discovered" it. It would've been especially useful when I first started machine sewing and was constantly having zany mishaps. If you're just starting out sewing, I definitely recommend keeping one of these near by. If you don't already have one lying around, you can get them from any craft store, wal-mart or even a decent dollar store.

With my seam ripper, separating the pillow was a piece of cake.

After that, it was simply a matter of selecting some new fabrics for the back and putting it together.

That, and of course ironing.

Personally, it isn't my favorite thing to do, but ironing out the wrinkles in your fabrics before you sew them onto your project will make a world of difference in the quality of your work.
The iron is beneficial in many ways. For example, if you added any dyes or paint, it will permanently heat set it and make it washer machine friendly. Using an iron will also improve the neatness of your sewing. You can achieve nice flat and crisp seams and a professional finish to your work. Some of my projects require me to iron at least 3 or 4 different times to get the look I want... It's a pain, but it's totally worth it.

 Once ironing is complete, all you have to do is cut out the new fabric in the size you want and assemble your brand new pillow. All that technical stuff will have to wait for another blog post... In the mean time I'm assuming all of you already know how to sew together a pillow. I would strongly recommend using a sewing machine to do this kind of project. In fact, a project like this would be perfect for practicing your sewing machine skills if you're still a beginner. Sewing machines provide faster and stronger stitch work. A project like this, which would take hours to hand sew, took me only 45 minutes or so with the machine to completely finish the sewing process.  If you don't know how to use a sewing machine yet, it's never too late to learn! It may seem like a daunting task but it isn't as hard to learn as you might think. It's a skill you can use for the rest of your life.

Anyways, here are the finished results, in all their Harry Potter Glory:

GET THE SNITCH HARRY!! (front)

I had a lot of this fabric and it goes perfect with the print. (back)

Look out for that demonic beast!!

I think it looks much more neater and clean with the make over! My family members agreed that it was an improvement.  In fact, they can attest to you how comfy it is now....


As always, if you did this project for yourself, I want to see the results!