Vintage T Pillows
Even designers have “design dilemmas”, I’ll admit it. When we replaced our white leather sofas with a grey tone fabric sofa I wanted to add some accent pillows. The pillows from the previous sofa did not work. I bought new grey pillows from an expensive store in the city but they just blended in and looked sort of…. blah. I bought new rectangular pillows with green covers from a fabric store. I thought they worked nicely and perfectly tied in our dining chairs in our open concept home, but my significant other expressed his hatred from them. My mother taught me the phrase “pick your battles”, so I decided to continue the frustrating search for pillows. My main problem arose from the fact that I had re-upholstered my dining chairs in a very graphic green and cream print. I didn’t want to compete with the chairs, nor did I want to use the same fabric again and be too “matchy-matchy”. 
While out window shopping one day, I was struck by a thought. Old t-shirts. Cool graphics. PERFECT! Off to a local thrift shop I went! Scouring the men’s extra large t-shirt rack I found four t-shirts (two black, two purple) with the maximum price of about $3.00. Next stop, fabric shop. I had originally thought I would simply use the same t-shirt material/colour for both sides of the pillow, but the graphics of the t-shirts really stuck in my head and I thought it would be fun to play off that. Luckily I found a perfect graphic outdoor fabric on sale for $7.48/yard. Heaven! We get a lot of sunlight in our home, plus there’s a small child, so having something that’s UV and stain resistant is ideal. I bought a yard and off I went. Total investment: $20.
At home I measured my pillow forms from my previous failed attempts at accenting my sofa. I cut out the graphic portions of the t-shirts accordingly with about an inch to spare. I like my covers to be rather tight to the form. Next, I cut the back piece
of the new covers from the great graphic outdoor fabric I purchased. I gave both cut pieces a quick iron since my t-shirts seemed to be exceptionally wrinkly. Pin the two pieces together, graphic sides face-to-face on the inside. Pull out your dusty sewing machine and sew around 3 sides. Continue sewing about a quarter to a half of the fourth side (remember you have to get your pillow form through the hole). Pop your new cover inside out, stuff your form in, and have a look at your handiwork. If it meets your seal of approval, handstitch that last bit of the pillow closed and admire how fabulous it looks in your room!
