a pillow for posterity

Here is a follow-up on the shirt saga!

We cut a lot of 5" squares to use in lap quilts or couch quilts for ourselves and kids.  Even strips for binding!  We used as much of the shirts as possible.  Some of them were pretty thin, they had seen lots of wear.  Others were newer or made of heavier oxford-type cloth.  So it's a real mixed bag.

We decided to also cut some smaller squares just to make some easy pillows.  These were 4 1/2" squares, making a cover for a 16" pillowform.

I knew that the thin fabric would not be very resilient against wear and tear.  Plus, for something like this, a pillowtop, it's much better to have a little bit of heft to the fabric so it's more like decorator fabric.  So after the squares were all sewn together (Jan helped with placement of the colors) and very well pressed, I pressed some lightweight fusible interfacing to the entire back.  I really wanted a good fuse so I used plenty of steam.  And I have learned to use a pressing cloth to keep from getting gunky glue residue on my iron.  After it was all cooled down, I layered it with a thin batting square and a muslin square.  Then I did simple straight-line quilting with my walking foot, 1/4" on each side of each seam.  After that, I just had to trim up the edges and sew to the pillow back....

very conveniently made from the shirt fronts!  So it had a natural button closing to get the pillowform in, and then close it up.  You can't see it well in this picture, but the pocket is still attached to the upper right corner of the pillow.  Someone told me it's like a giant tooth fairy pillow!

I really like having this little pillow on my couch, it can give me a hug when I need one!