Here is a little step by step look at the making on one of my latest pillows. I didn't realize how much I would like drawing on fabric, but it's really fun!

With just about everything I do, there's usually an initial sketch. Even if it's a drawing, I like to get the overall layout down quickly, so I'll draw it out and then go and re-draw it somewhere else when it's all planned.  

This photo is good because it shows how important it is to have all your supplies laid out.  Coffee, snacks, sunglasses for some reason. I think this day they had the vanilla bean scones = awesome. Those thing are so good and they almost NEVER have them. Don't know what the problem is. If you know a Starbucks that carries them regularly I'd love to know about it.  Anyways... So in this case I was drawing on a white tee. I like to use vintage fabric, but this was a new shirt. The fabric gets stretched over a board and pinned down and I get to sketching. Should have done more progress shots, but it only occurred to me halfway through, so this is what you get.

It took maybe 3 hours to draw the whole thing. I like to be picky about shading and things. And I'll draw over the same line probably 10 times until it's the thickness and texture I want.

My original plan was to have the pillow be the shapes of the owls, but I sewed it up that way and the seams weren't laying right. It was passable, but not really nice, so I took it all apart and made it into a square shaped patchwork pillow instead. Doing the patchwork was pretty involved, but I think it came out great. And that's the story of how this pillow was made.

I have a lot of tees. Between shirts that I've actually designed and other shirts that I've seen along the way and had to have, the pile has gotten pretty huge. A lot of these shirts are designs that I love to look at, but don't necessarily love to wear. I mean, I there are other kinds of clothes out there too, I can't wear a t-shirt everyday! So recently I came up with a new use for one of my favorite woot tees  - it turned into a pillow!

This was one of those shirts that I just didn't wear, maybe because it's brown, I don't know. So it was in great shape and with a little sewing, can sit happily on the sofa instead of being tucked away in the closet.

I'm not going to go into a whole list of instructions on how to make your own shirt pillow because that's probably already been done. Google it if you need to.  I do have one bit of advice that should be helpful tho...

Since tees are made from a knit fabric, they're really stretchy. Great for wearing, not so great when you want it to hold it's shape like in the case of a pillow. So my #1 tip before you sew it all up is this: Get something to reinforce the fabric. I like to use a fuseable interfacing. It bonds to the tee and won't let it grow any bigger. You could also just stitch it to another piece of non-stretchy fabric, like a linen or cotton, but make sure you do something to keep the knit from stretching out.

And that's it, sew it up and enjoy! Or if you prefer not to sew, let me do the work for you.  The tea pillow is available for purchase in my Etsy shop. Even easier.