DIY no-sew pillow

With my previous success of using a shirt from a thrift store to give new life to my leather flats (which I wore today and had quite a number of people notice and compliment! :), I've been making it a point to scan the clothing sections in second hand stores for fabrics that jump out at me.

More surprisingly than not, thrift stores are a great place to find cheap fabrics for projects (and if you make a mistake, there's no guilt hanging over your head :)

The trick is to not focus on the style of the shirt/skirt/jacket/whatever, but rather look at the print, quality/type of material, and the amount of usable material.

Take for example, the beaut I found on my latest thrift store run:

It was an XXL shirt (amount, check!) that had a bright coral-orange zebra print (fun print, check!), but was SO not my style (not discriminating on taste, check!). The only thing I didn't like was the price tag - $20! like, seriously?! You got it FREE, store! FREE!

Okay, that's another story. Good thing it was a 50% off Day when I saw it.

I took the fake-bake-martini-sipping-sugar-mama shirt home with me for $10 (well, that's what I call it), and got to work with a pair of scissors;

 I cut it into three pieces (front, back, and a really short crop top. I'm sure Sugar Mama would still wear it, no?)

I cut off all the edges,

until a seriously playful puppy distracted me (from which chasing and fetching commenced).

After Peaches got bored of me galloping after her and shrieking like a banshee, 

I got my act AND my materials together:

stuffing, navy blue piping (1.5 yards), Stitch Witchery (fusible bonding tape), scissors, an iron, and my heeeedeous ironing board (looks like bathroom linoleum from the 90s. And you'll be staring at it for the next 50 pictures. Apologies).

For the piping, I first laid my stitch witchery on the edges of what would be the pillow fronts,

and laid my piping on top of the tape.

For crisp corners, I snipped a half centimeter cut into the piping material,

then made a 90-degree turn, and continued ironing the piping, tape and material together (this small snip really made a world of difference!)

With my iron from the 1900s, I continued on every edge, making sure to follow the fusing tape's directions carefully.

To connect the piping, I did the same as I did for the other corners:

snipped a slit into the fabric,

(and made sure the beginning piece was snugly ironed flat against the material)

Then I tucked a piece of (fusing) tape under the first piece,

and overlapped the final piece of piping so it would hang off the edge.

After ironing it, I trimmed off the excess.

With the piping now complete, I took the other side of fabric and laid it face down.

I then began to iron again, making sure all of the edges were lined up and that all of the tape was melting everything securely in place.

(you can see here how the connected pieces would disappear nicely under the other pillow front).

When it was near complete, I made sure to leave a small wrist-sized hole.

I turned the baby inside out and began stuffing it like a turkey (ALWAYS making sure the corners were stuffed first, as my MIL taught me! :)

In the end, I had a wallet-friendly, chic DIY pillow (with all memories of the imaginary sugar mama disappearing).

This baby had some dangerously crisp corners!

gah! love it!

And it's surprisingly more soft and squooshy than my furry DIY pillow!

This is SUCH an easy project that yields serious joy-inducing results (if you can wield an iron, you've got what it takes!)

Hope you eye an ooglay pillow-worthy shirt sometime!! 

Have a super awesome one :)

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