I have been busy sewing today. I needed a break from knitting with 4 ply yarn that seems to last forever. The catalyst was finding a perfectly good shirt in my waste bin. Hubby has to dress well at work. He buys expensive shirts and, much to my annoyance, discards them when there is plenty of wear left in them. I usually rescue them for the local charity shop.
This time I loved the material. It was thick and strong. Hubby ... I'm resisting cracking a joke about "thick and strong" ... usually buys blue shirts. He must have found his feminine side when he bought this one because it is a lovely mix of jewel colours. Here is a close-up:
It might look like a lumberjack shirt here. But the quality was amazing. I just happened to be walking along Regent Street in London this morning and noticed a whole shop full of shirts by this designer.
I know from experience how surprisingly difficult it is to sew with checks. This shirt made it look easy. All the colours and checks lined up perfectly at the seams. That made cutting up the shirt and sewing the cushion cover a walk in the park.
In less than an hour, I turned this rather large shirt
into this cushion cover
I found the idea on the Internet. There are many online tutorials for turning shirts into cushion covers. Most tutorials are identical; so I won't link to the tutorial I followed because that would be favoritism. But this cushion cover really is easy to make. It cost peanuts to sew and the inner cushion pad was a bargain in a bulk buy from Argos.
Anyone who wants to make one of these could simply go to a charity shop and buy a very inexpensive shirt. Some people make "memory shirts" to remind them of someone who is no longer here.
I love how this turned out and even Hubby, who rarely comments on my craft work, is impressed. I'm planning to make a few of these for the sofa bed in our guest room. I just have to wait patiently for more shirts to become available!
My sister, the quilter, looovvvveees men's shirting for quilt blocks. My son-in-law, the banker, wears through the left elbow of his shirts. I think he could have the tailor sew fancy felt patches on them, before or after the damage, but nnnoooooooo... Binned, as you say. My daughter often shows up at the house with a couple for my sister's stash.
ReplyDeleteNice pillow!
That looks wonderful! And you're right -- that is a pretty plaid fabric. I'm surprised he threw it out -- I'd be retrieving those shirts out of the trash too, like you :) What a pretty pillow!
ReplyDeleteIt's lovely Una, what a great idea. :) x
ReplyDeleteThat's a great use for an unwanted shirt, Una. Old shirts are easy to convert to skirts and dresses too, if you get a lot of discards....
ReplyDeleteMy local Council used to recycle textiles. So I felt a bit less guilty if any ended up in the bin. They have stopped now. So I must make more effort to reuse these shirts.
DeleteGreat idea for upcycling the old shirt.
ReplyDelete