How to make Fall pillows out of thrifted sweaters! Repurpose old sweaters into new and vibrant pillow covers for your home this fall. This easy sewing tutorial shows you how! 

Make Sweater Pillows

Who else is excited for Fall!! It might be my FAVORITE time to decorate. I love the cooler weather, pumpkin spice everything and the vibrant fall colors. Fall gives me major inspiration to decorate! I have been bringing LOTS of color into our home over the past two years. One of my favorite colors right now is bright PINK. And while it might not seem like a fall color, let me assure you that you can bring ANY color in for fall and make it work!

I am giving away a $50 Savers gift card at the bottom of the post – be sure to enter! 

Take an Old Sweater and Turn it into a Sweater Pillow

Sweater material is naturally thick and cozy. There are so many sweaters that are knit, soft and perfect to make cozy warm pillows for Autumn. And while it might seem daunting to find sweater material to make pillows out of, it’s not! Thrifted sweaters are perfect to make into pillow covers! Have you ever washed a wool sweater in the washing machine and you are SO upset when it comes out completely shrunk down? I think everyone has!! And what do people do with those sweaters? Donate them!

What Kind of Sweater Makes a Good Sweater Pillow

Head over to your local Savers Thrift Store and gather some gorgeous sweaters. The wool sweaters that have shrunk make perfect pillow covers too! I headed to my Savers and had a ball going through the sweater section! There are sweaters in EVERY color under the sun. How pretty would it be to do all off-white pillows for winter? I might do that one next. You can find sweaters in all kinds of patterns and textures.

Pick a Sweater that Matches the Colors in Your Home

Since I am loving COLOR in our home, I found sweaters that were very vibrant and went with our new rug. Lots of pink and purple. My sweaters will all kinds of different textures and materials. One is wool, one is cotton knit and one is a tweed poncho that I found.

Pillow Covers are Easy to Store

If you’ve been reading my blog for long you might know that I LOVE making pillow covers. It’s SO easy! And I love switching my pillow covers out for different seasons and holidays. It’s so much easier than having a million pillows everywhere. I just take the pillow covers off and store them flat like this:

How to Make Envelope Enclosure Pillow Covers

The idea behind making sweater pillow covers is exactly the same as my regular pillow covers. I make an envelope back enclosure which makes this project SO easy. There are NO zippers. It’s just plain, straight stitches. My kids could make these pillow covers. SO easy!

How to Make Fall Pillows out of Thrifted Sweaters:

Make the Front of the Pillow Cover First

Measure the pillow insert you want to use

• Add 1 inch to each side.
• Cut out the pillow front.

Make the Back of the Pillow Cover

• For the back, take the measurements of the front and add 8 inches to the total on the WIDTH. Then cut that piece of sweater in half. This is your envelope enclosure. It will create flaps on both panels that hold the pillow insert inside the cover.

Sew the Back Seams

• Sew a seam on the back panels so there are no raw edges.

Pin the Front and Back Panels Together

• Flip the front of the pillow cover over so the inside is laying on your work surface.
• Lay the two panels on top of the front panel, with the front sides facing inward.

Sew the Panels Together

• Sew the pillow cover all the way around all four sides.
• Reach inside the pillow cover and turn the pillow cover inside out, which is actually the good side of the sweaters.
• Insert the pillow inserts inside of the covers.

How to Make a Rectangular Envelope-Enclosure Pillow Cover

For the long, rectangular pillow that I made out of the poncho I wanted to save the fringe from the outside of the poncho. So I used that fringed edge for one of the sides of the enclosure. On this pillow I made the enclosure side the front of the pillow. Usually the flaps on the pillow are in the back because they aren’t as nice look as the plain front. But on this pillow, I wanted to feature the fringe so I used the enclosure on the front. This might seem a little overwhelming, but it really isn’t. This pillow is made exactly the same as the other pillows, I just use the back of the pillow as the front.

Enjoy Your New Fall Sweater Pillows

Now I have pillows that go along with my bright and COLORFUL decor, and they are very warm and cozy – perfect for Fall!

We LOVE Savers. We are there at least a couple of times a month. One of the things I LOVE about Savers is that the inventory changes over so quickly. They literally get hundreds of thousands of items in every month. So many cute brand-name clothes, furniture, home decor, bedding. accessories, shoes, etc. I love browsing the side of the store that has all of the items packaged up in bags. There are treasures everywhere!

The post How to Make Fall Pillows out of Thrifted Sweaters! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

Who loves pillows??? There’s no easier way to change up the look of a room than switching out pillow covers. And what better feeling than to make the pillow yourself??

I was able to try out Silhouette’s 24-inch mat this week. Wow is it big!! There are so many projects I can think of to use with this mat. The first thing I wanted to make of course was a pillow. And with Spring coming, I wanted to introduce some more colors into my family room. I love yellow. So I took a plain white Ikea pillow cover and some yellow canvas and came up with a pillow that I love!!!

• I used one of the shapes from Silhouettes online store, the Circle Links Background — .99. I brought it into my screen and then copied it, then matched them up and erased the lines in the middle to make one big image.

• Then I cut out a length of the yellow canvas — 24 inches long by 12  inches wide and ironed on the fabric interfacing.

• I peeled off the backing and put the material on my new mat.

• Then I cut it out. My machine got off track and messed up one corner before I could reset the machine (just keeping it real)

• But once I started it again and got it on track, it cut the fabric out perfectly. And that was a very complex pattern.

• Once the design was cut out, I peeled the design off the mat and placed it on my pillow over.

• I ironed it on and it looked SO good!!

To cover up that little area that got messed up and to add a little ooomph to the project, I made a giant fabric flower out of some chevron fabric.

I was going to sew the fabric on the pillow cover but it ended up being so thick that I hot glued it onto a piece of fabric and attached it to the pillow with two pins. That way I can take the flower off while I wash the cover. So the flower won’t get ruined.

And that is how I made my new favorite pillow!!!!

And the Silhouette people are running a special on their cutting mats + fabric interfacing products — you can get a bundle for a great price right now. Just type in “TATER” at checkout to get a new 24″ cutting mat, plus the smooth and the sewing interfacing packs for a great price (code expires on Feb. 29th).

xoxo

PS — It’s my favorite day of the week!! Why?? It’s almost time for The Weekend Wrap Up Party – I am excited to see YOUR ideas!!! The party starts tonight at 6 pm MST

The post Geometric Pillow (tutorial and Silhouette deal) appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.