Turning a Placemat into a Pillow

 I saw this yellow lattice place mat at Target and loved the fabric.  I looked for the napkins, thinking that I could make a pillow out of it.  When I found the napkins, I discovered it was a print while the place mat had an embroidered surface that I liked so much more.  It was also only $3.99 so I was sold.

First, I removed the bias tape on the edge.  I used a seam ripper which made the job a cinch.

The place mat was a rectangle and I wanted a square pillow so I folded one edge over. 

I cut right on that edge to make the square.  

I'm left with this piece.  I hadn't cut the trim off yet.   The next step would be to cut off the trim, saving the far right edge to be re-used.

 I stuffed the place mat to make it into a pillow and pinned the white bias along the edge.

I hand sewn the white trim.  You could skip this step and automatically pin the yellow bias tape right on top, but I thought it would be easier.

I added the yellow bias tape and pinned in place.

I machine stitched it to complete the look.  

It goes great in the room.

Who knew a place mat would be such a lovely pillow?

Total price was only $3.99 since I had the pillow stuffing already.

 

Ruched Pillow

What can you do with some old clothes? Absolutely anything.

After the garage sale last month, we had bags of clothing to give away. I went through every bag and pulled some clothes purely because of the fabric.

Here's my sister's dress. After trying it on and seeing that it just wasn't all that flattering on me,

I decided that I would turn it into a pillow for my sister because I loved the eyelet fabric. It's vintage looking and shabby chic which is exactly my sister.

So after hearing for the upteenth time that she wanted a ruched comforter set like this one sold at West Elm, I decided that I would use her future bedding set as my inspiration.

I removed the bodice from the dress and slipped the skirt part of the dress over a pre-made pillow. I hand basted one side of the pillow.

Then, I pulled the thread on one end.

This caused the fabric to gather. I spaced out the gathered fabric evenly across the pillow.

Once it was gathered, I sewed the opening of the pillow together, right sides together.

Once that was done, I flipped the fabric around on the pillow and sewed the other end to a zipper. Since, her colors are white, gray, and teal, I decided to keep the pillow a little fun with a teal zipper instead of white. I love it!

Next, I basted the front of the pillow four times. This will keep the ruching even. I first basted it with two columns, but decided I liked the double thickness effect, adding another column beside the first two about 2 cms apart.

Voila! A dress turned into a pillow.



Do you like my house warming gift?

She loved it, but then she asked me to make her another one.

Sorry, no dress left for another pillow. ;)