Pumpkin Dyed Men's Shirts Now Are Pillows

It's Friday and I have a few projects going at once, but I wanted to stop in and show you the pillows I made with the pumpkin color dyed men's shirts.

 These pillows are so easy to  make. I think from start to finish maybe it took 25 minutes. Super super easy.

If you are interested in trying to make these pillows yourself I have a few tutorials that might help.  Here you can see my tutorial on how to Deconstruct a Man's Shirt and then here is the tutorial on how to make the Man's Shirt pillow.
 
If you are going to buy some shirts at the local thrift store or garage sale my suggest is that you buy 100% cotton shirts. I also only buy shirts that are XL or larger so I can get a 16" x16" pillow that will include the pocket. I also like to get long sleeve shirts so I have that extra material to use for another project but it's not a deal breaker (I could live with a short sleeve Xlarge shirt) Check the buttons and make sure they are all there. It's terrible to get started and realize that a button is missing.

So let me know if you have tried making one of these shirt pillows.

The above photo includes 2 16" x 16" pillows and 2 12" x 16" lumbar pillows. I'm visiting the following parties.

My Burlap Pillow Done

Where do my ideas come from? Well alot of times I get inspired from items I see on Pinterest just like this item below. Do you not just love this pillow? Love, love, love  it.

Source

I love everything about this pillow but most of all I love the ruffles, possibly because it's burlap?  The creator of this pillow is Suzanne from Notes From The Patch and if you click on over to her web site you will find a great tutorial on how to achieve this look.  Love me some burlap and ruffles to beat.

So I had this ruffle in mind when I found the black and white toile at the thrift store. I wanted to do just like Suzanne did having the whole ruffle be exposed on the pillow. In other words not inserting it into the seam.

So I had that fiasco with the fraying burlap (You can read about that here)  and with all the seams after the pillow was finally done I just didn't think another seam on the outside of the pillow would look good. I just thought it might be too bulky.

So went to plan B though plan B wasn't plan B until plan A was a no go. I wanted to add that black and white toile I had which was the whole purpose of making a burlap pillow in the first place. So i decided to add the ruffle to the envelope side of the pillow. Actually I added it to the edge of the opening.

So I'm pretty happy with the way it looks. I did the ruffle and then I added the vintage black trim. I placed the pillow sideways which gave the ruffle an off centered look which I like.

Using What I Have Challenge!

The challenge that I have accept to take is to Use What I Already Have in my creative projects. This at first seemed to be a bit daunting but it turned out to be so much fun.

So for today my goal was to make some pillows out of cloth napkins.

Right away the opportunity came up to put this challenge to the test. 

I had already printed out this wonderful bird image from the Graphics Fairy web site and once that was done and ironed on the napkin I realized that the image was a bit too small for the size pillow it was going to be.  Normally I'd run to the fabric store frantically trying to find a solution, but nope the challenge was to use what I had on hand.

So hunting in my stash of stuff I found this wonderful ribbon (that I already had) that was perfect.  Not having any brown thread on hand to sew the ribbon onto the pillow I then decided I'd use some of that iron on tape I had saved from some Ikea curtains.  I was pretty surprised this challenge thingy wasn't really a challenge but was a way to get my creative juices going. 

I am so pleased with the design and to think that I had everything that the pillow needed. No running to the store wasting time and dollars, the pillow design ingredients were already there.

Oh yeah you see that line in the image but you are way too polite to mention. Yes it was a goof up on my part. I let the hot iron hit the image and it created that line. Another one of those lessons learned, such as protect your iron on image with cloth if using an iron near it.

This challenge for me is on going and with the stash of stuff I have I should be unstumped for quite a long time. 

BTW with that obvious line the pillow has found a home with me.

I'm Partying At The Following

Sunday's Best at My 1929 Charmer
Brag Monday at the Graphics Fairy

How To Tea Dye Fabric!

I love using fabric in my projects, I'm a bit of a fabricaholic, can't go into a fabric store without drooling and buying.

Sometimes though the newness of the fabric just sets me on edge a bit. It's the fabric stiffener and the brightness of the colors that I think does it to me and so I use tea dying to give the fabric a look of.... maturity. (that sounds so much better than old) 

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

Tea bags of course, lots of them. 

Picture Source

A Big Pot, Like A Pasta Pot! 

Picture Source

Water! 

Picture Source 

Fabric

Picture Source

FIRST gather your fabrics. Keep in mind the size of the pot and gather according to what will fit. I've tea dyed solid colors and all sorts of prints from muslin to decorator's fabric. All the fabric I do dye is washable and I've never done a dry clean only type of fabric. I then soak my fabric in clear water, usually in my kitchen sink. Once all the fabric has been completely wet I then wring out as much of the water as I can and place them waiting for the dye bath.  I've noticed that if I do this first step the fabric accepts the dye better and reduces streaks.

SECOND let it boil. Add the water to your large pot leaving room at the top so the fabrics won't cause your water to spill over.  Set it on the stove and get that water boiling.

THIRD  get your tea bags ready. I like to remove the little paper tag on the string just so the printed dye doesn't bleed into my dye. It probably wouldn't but just in case.  How many you ask?  Well I do about 30 bags for my big pot but I do like a visual tea dyed look.  Do a bit less for a less browny vintage look.  You will have to experiment to see what works best for you. 

FOURTH  add the tea bags. Once the water reaches the boiling point start adding your tea bags using a spoon to coax the bags into getting fully wet. With all the tea bags added to the pot and wet I let the water boil for about another 2 minutes to get a rich deeper brown dye. 

FIFTH  add fabric. Turn off the gas and then submerge the fabric into the brown dye using the same spoon you used to get the tea bags wet. You don't want to put your hands in boiling water, use the spoon. Yes!  I let the fabric and tea bags co-mingle. I've never had the problem of the tea bags bursting open and causing a mess. If you would rather remove the bags do so after the 2 minute boil and do it carefully. 

SIXTH relax and wait. Hard part is over now it's a waiting game. I usually don't start checking my fabric until the water has cooled down to lukewarm. That's about 2 hours. On occasion I've left my fabric in the dye bath overnight to get a real deep color but usually I'm happy with the results when I first check. Once the batch is done you could add more fabric to the cool water and the dye still works but it doesn't come out as dark as quickly. That's my observation. 

SEVENTH  Rinse and repeat. Your happy with the color keeping in mind wet it will look darker. Now back to the sink.  Your fabric needs to be rinsed of all its tea. I  fill my kitchen sink with clear water and swoosh my fabric around until I see the water turn brown. Empty the water from the sink and repeat, it usually takes about three times for the fabric to be totally rinsed out.. I line dry my dyed fabrics because I don't want to deal with fraying edges of the fabric that might happen in the dryer.

OOPS  Not what you expected.  There's always a do over here, just add your fabric to your bleach wash and it will be back to original color.

Now if I had to do large yardage of fabric I would have to find another way to do it, a pot even a pasta pot will hold just so much fabric. If I'm making a pillow I'll dye the fabric after the pattern pieces have been cut. I also find small scrap amounts of fabric that I have on hand and give them the bath also. 

 The top fabric on these pillows is a osnaburg fabric that I tea dyed to give it an aged look. The bottom portion of the pillow was an upcycled fabric from an aged seen better days pillow.

Tutorials are great but it's been my experience that you just need to get in there and get your hands dirty (try it)  If you have any questions let me know I'd love to help. 

Pin It

Pillows Made From An Afghan!

I had this afghan sitting in my booth for quite a long time. I like to turn over merchandise in no less than 90 days and if something doesn't sell I either;

1. mark it down
2. do something else to it
3. just bring it home to live with me. 

This afghan won choice number 2

I've seen some wonderful sweater pillows on  Pinterest and blogs and the picture below is just one of many.  The blog Brassy Apple has a simple tutorial on how she made them. You can find that HERE.

Source

So this Pinterest picture was my inspiration to the idea to create some simple pillows with my afghan.

There were some difference in the knit I used, mine was a very loose weave and because of this I decided the pillows needed a liner. I had some Ikea curtains from my other home that didn't make the grade in my new home but was perfect for the lining material. I cut my curtain/liner fabric the size of my pillows which was 12" x 16".   I like a plump pillow and for that reason always use the measurement of my pillow for my fabric pieces.

The afghan with it's loose weave has a lot of give which caused a problem trying to cut the exact size of the pillow . To solve this problem I just cut a piece of the afghan  larger than my lining and then pinned the liner to the cut piece from the afghan. Then following the outer edge line of the liner I zig zag stitched the liner to the afghan. Once that was done I cut off the excess afghan material.  I repeated again for the other side of the pillow.

Then I just placed the two pieces together right sides facing each other and sew them together leaving a bit of space open at the bottom to insert pillow.  After pillow was inserted I then just slip stitched the opening closed.

As you can tell from the picture I varied how the cable lines appeared on the pillows to give each one it's own distinct look.

From the one afghan I got 5 pillows with lots of scrap for something else (?)

These pillows will be sold in my booth at Knot On Main Street for $15. each.

I'm joining these parties   

 Pillows and Cushions Link Party at Threading My Way
Sunday's Best at My 1929 Charmer  
Newbie Link Party at Debbie Doo's

Fabric Napkins Take On A Whole New Look!

I've had these linen type napkins for quite a few years stashed in my fabric pile . Originally they were my aunt's and I think her plan was to embroider on them. I confiscated them because I loved the feel and look of the fabric and always thought they would make really cute little pillows. Plus you know they were like a blank canvas waiting to be something else. They measure 14" x 14"

Napkins waiting for the day to become pillows

But you know how you have these great ideas and they (the napkins) just sit there until tomorrow or the next day or maybe even the day after that. Those tomorrows became years.

So I'm here to tell you I finally got them made. What explanation do I have for finally getting them done?  I think I heard them calling to me from the fabric stash begging to be the promised pillows. When napkins start calling it's time to listen and do.  Sorry folks that's the best reason I can come up.

The edges were already hemmed so my idea was to just sew two together just below the hem line and then stuff with some loose fill. 

Plain white little pillows are just...... plain and I wanted more pizazz  like transfer image pizazz. I love the vintage french looking black and white images and the graphic fairy has some really great ones. So I went browsing on her web site and came up with a few that I thought would be perfect for the pillows.

This brings up the point of transferring images onto fabric.  Browse the web and you will find all these different techniques on how to do it.  It can be a bit overwhelming. After much research I decided that Lesley Riley's Transfer Artist Paper would be my method of choice. It does a wonderful transfer and it's so easy and I'm all for easy.

So I had enough napkins (10) to make 5 pillows. I used 5 different images from the Graphic Fairy.

Black and white pillows with a french flair

The above picture is just 4 of the 5 pillows and you only get to see 2 of the images I used from the Graphic Fairy . Below is a close up of another image.

This one is my favorite.

I think these little pillows make a great accent up against some larger pillows, maybe on a bed.

Men's Shirt Pillows

A few days ago I showed you how to deconstruct a man's shirt and you can see that tutorial here. Now lets get to the pillow making.

First off let me tell you what I've learned from trial and error. It's best to buy a man's extra large shirt. If the shirt goes by neck size I would go no lower than a 17" neck.  This way when you cut off the sleeves and collar you have enough of the front to make a large pillow that places the pocket in a good place.  Second when placing your pattern onto the front keep the cutting and sewing lines away from the buttons. If you can't do that then you'll need to remove that button


Okay so now decide on the size of the pillow you want. I opted to buy  pillow forms, just because I think its neater looking and also because I wasn't sewing closed the button area and I thought the fiber fill could leak out. I purchased my 16" pillow forms from Joanne's and was very lucky that they had them at 50% off plus that weekend there was a 20% off coupon on top of that, score!

I always have a roll of kraft paper that comes in handy for making patterns and did so for my pillows, making  it  a 17" square.  I added the additional 1" all around to give me enough sewing allowance plus allow a loose look to the pillows. .

I place my pattern  on the shirt front (making sure that the shirt is totally buttoned up) paying attention to where the button line would be and also the pocket. Most of the ones I made the button line is center but I also liked the look of the button area being a bit off to the side. The pocket looked best if it's down a bit from the top of the pillow. I then traced the pattern onto the fabric and then cut. I used a sharpie marker for my tracing figuring it was going to be cut off so it was okay to do that, maybe?

Okay sewed all four sides, snipped the corners so they wouldn't bunch up, unbuttoned the shirt, turned inside out, pressed and inserted pillow and viola!. It's pretty easy.

The first pillow I made looked like this right from the sewing machine. Yawn..... it was boring looking to me. It looked clean, crisp, like a well dressed man, but it didn't fit in with the decorating scheme I was going after.

So I tea dyed it and the coloring was better but there was another problem.  Not sure if you can see it in the photo but there's a streak down the side of the buttons that makes the pillow look dirty. My guess is that no customer will want to buy a pillow that looks dirty no matter how cute it thinks it is. Luckily I can just bleach it out and start again.  Since then I've learned what not to do when tea dying and will gladly share that with you on another post.

So after the tea dye I'm still yawning........ though not so much. Just didn't have that zing I was looking for. So I then did one more thing and made up some small covered buttons with some contrasting shirt material  and glued them on top of the existing buttons.  Now it's better, not perfect but better.   Love to hear what you think about it .Juror is out if I'll make buttons for the rest of  the pillows. Oh yeah I took away the button on the pocket that was a bit of over kill. 

My hope is that when I get all 15 pillows out on display at the craft show they all will look great!