Recycle Dress Shirts Into Pilllows

For Christmas, my grandmother gave each of her granddaughters pillows that she made out of some of our grandfather's old dress shirts. I got the instructions from her because I had been holding onto another shirt of my grandfather's since he passed away several years ago. The idea actually came from Country Living, and is a simple project.

It starts with a dress shirt. Iron first to remove any wrinkles. Button the shirt and pin the back to the front.

Measure the size of your pillow (pillowforms go on sale at Joanns for 50% off all the time - mine was just $8), then add 2 inches to both the height and the width. My pillow was 16x16, so the square I cut out measured 18x18.

Flip the fabric so that the unfinished sides are facing outward and the finished sides are facing inwards. Sew around all four sides. Unbutton the shirt (the buttons will be on the inside) and turn the pillowcase so it is right side out. Here is a close up of the fabric I used:

Sew around the edge of the pillowcase at 1/8 inch from the edge and then 3/8 from the edge to create a clean, finished look. Insert pillow, button up the shirt and you should have something like this:

I love how this fabric goes so well on our couch and with the other pillows that I made nearly 2 years ago!

My favorite part about this pillow project is that it is so easy to insert the pillow into the pillowcase. When I made the other four pillows, I had to leave a small hole and then stitch it up by hand -- and one of those seems has busted. But with this pillowcase there is no hand stitching to worry about!