Turn a sweater into pillows

I rarely buy clothes without trying them on first, but of course the one time I do, I end up with this beauty.

I’m not sure what the problem was. It is a sweater. How hard is that to try on? Whatever the reason, I bought it. When I got home and put it on, I was instantly transported onto the set of The Golden Girls.
The show=awesome. The clothes=even more awesome.

I wanted to do something with it (other than wear it!) because I liked the pattern and the colors. I love the look of sweater pillows and I thought this actually might make cute throw pillows.

Let’s see.

For this button pillow, I cut part of the sweater into two rectangles and sewed them together with the bright sides facing inward. I left one side open and turned the pillow right side out (so my seams were hidden) and stuffed it with pillow filling. I folded my open side down twice and sewed it to the sweater, creating a folded section. I sewed three buttons along the fold for decoration.

For the following sweater, I used a throw pillow that I already had as my base. I placed the corner of the pillow up into the cuff (the white corner was the cuff) and used a button to hide the ends that I had to mush together.

I was able to wrap around the sweater and sew it along the other seam. Since I was sewing the seam on the outside, I decided to do a scrunched look.

With the scraps I had left, I made borders along white pillow cases that I had.

I was able to use up almost all of the sweater!

So before you go buy living room or porch pillows, take a look in your closet first!

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Resurrected Sweater

awwww, don’t throw out your poor sweater just because it has a hole in it. Rather than end its life, let it start a new life with a quick patch job.

I actually have to credit this project to my husband. I showed him the hole disappointedly and he said (jokingly), “Why don’t you just slap a patch over it?”

I’m sure he wishes I would just laugh at his jokes. Instead, I take them very seriously.

On the bright side, I called him a genius and left him alone for an hour while I worked on this.

Here is the sad state of the sweater before…

First I sewed along the edges of the hole just to clean it up a bit. I don’t know if this was really necessary, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Next, I cut a circle out of red felt just large enough to cover the hole and pinned it in place.

With a zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine, I sewed around the edge of the red patch (twice for good measure) and that was it.

Since the patch is on the back of the sweater, it definitely is a different look, but I like it.

You could also do this with clothes that have a stain that won’t come out. Just cover the stain with a patch and sew it on in the same manner.

Now go grab your Goodwill bag and see what you can resurrect!

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