Recycled T-Shirt Pillow Project

My son is a big fan of the Mario Bros. On a work trip a few years ago, Flyboy picked up a very cool red t-shirt for him, with Mario and Luigi on the front. It was his favourite shirt and he wore it mainly on special occasions. As kids seem to do, he grew and grew and before long, it had gotten too small and especially too short.

Rather than throw it out, or donate to a kid who may not appreciate the Mario Bros as much as he did, we decided to make it into a pillow.




To make a recycled T-Shirt pillow, all you need to do is turn the shirt inside out and give it a bit of a press to make sure it's nice and flat.

Lay it on the cutting mat with with your rotary cutter and ruler, cut straight along each side to remove the side hems and the sleeves. Then cut straight across the top to remove the collar.

As this fabric is quite stretchy (and wiggly), pin, pin and then pin some more.

Sew along the 3 raw edges which you just cut out with a stitch length of between 1.8 and 2.0. If you have a serger, sew along the raw edges or if not, just use a zig zag stitch within the seam (which is what I did).

Turn out the pillow and ensure the corners are well turned out. Use polyester fill to fill the pillow, or create a pillow insert to suit the size - I used an old pillow, cut the bottom of the polyester fill to the size I wanted and then re-sewed the pillow insert cover.

I then pinned the final seam together (which is still the original seam of the shirt) and sewed along the seam line. It's a bit of a rough edge, but my boy really doesn't mind at all. 

If you'd like to make it perfect, turn the seams under and sew an invisible slip stitch.

He's lined up a few other t-shirts, which he'd like turned into pillows. And my daughter thinks she might like me to make one for her too!

Are your kids Mario Bros fans too? Do they have favourite clothes which they just can't stand to part with?

No comments

Thank you for your comment. I truly appreciate the time you've taken to leave me a message. I will attempt to answer comments via email.