Cute Holiday Pillow Project

One of my favourite upcycle projects is taking old sweaters and turning them into pillow covers. It's so easy to do, even a beginner sewer or a child can do it. All you need is an old sweater and then whatever fabrics/notions you want to use to decorate.

In the project I'm going to show you here, I used a GORGEOUS wool blend sweater that unfortunately was put in the dryer by a friend of mine, so she kindly donated it to me to use as fabric. It is so tiny! Here's a picture of what it looked like at the start. I had already chopped the sleeves off when I remembered to take the picture (classic), but you get the general idea:


You can see I have the pillow already inside to measure.

Steps:
Before starting, always turn the sweater inside out!
1. I cut off the sleeves and the neck and a bit of excess off each side (this will vary depending on how large your sweater is as well as the pillow size). 

2. Sew your newly cut (still inside out) rectangle (or square, depending on your pillow) leaving one side open.
3. Turn the cover back outside in and sew, glue or iron on whatever decorations you want (I chose a plaid pocket which I sewed). *KEEP THAT ONE SIDE OPEN*

4. Stick your pillow inside the open end.

5. Turn the edges of your open side inwards so the raw edges aren't showing, and sew up that open side. 

6. Now you have a cute cozy pillow!
* Note - these aren't removable pillow covers*

Here's what mine looked like in the end:

I love this project because it makes use of something that would otherwise be discarded (a shrunken sweater), it's SO fast (took me literally 15 minutes), and It's totally customizable - you can add whatever you want to it!

Let me know what you think of this little upcycle.

XO
Katy