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How to: DIY Sweater Pillow

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Most of us have a few old sweaters laying around that either don’t fit or just aren’t attractive to us anymore. Instead of throwing them out, why not give them new life as something else? It’s easy to take an old sweater and turn it into an attractive and useful DIY sweater pillow for the bed, for the sofa or even just for the dog. Here’s how.

Supplies for a DIY sweater pillow

You need an old sweater and an appropriately sized pillow form. To determine the right size for the pillow form, you can measure the sweater. Or, take the sweater to the craft store and compare it to pillow forms until you find one you like.

Making your DIY sweater pillow

Turn the sweater inside out and measure it against the pillow form. Mark the sweater with a pen. You’ll want to stitch an extra ¼-inch seam around the marks to ensure that the sweater is big enough to accommodate the pillow.

If you can, plan on using at least one side seam of the sweater. That would minimize your sewing.

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With the sweater still inside out, stitch the seams together with a sewing machine or by hand with needle and thread, leaving one seam open. Turn the sweater right-side out and insert the pillow form into the open end. Hand stitch the last seam closed.

Felted sweater pillow

You can also use a felted sweater to make a sweater pillow. Be sure to felt the sweater before measuring for and selecting pillow forms, as the material will shrink.

100%-wool sweaters can easily be felted. machine wash the sweaters with detergent on hot/cold setting, then dry on hot setting. Repeat this cycle about three times. Test the sweaters for felting by snipping the hem an inch or so in. If it frays, it’s not quite finished. Try running it through the wash/dry cycle again.

Once felted, cut out pieces and sew as per the instructions above.

Elle in VA

Thursday 15th of November 2012

What do you do with the sleeves???

SewRogue

Monday 6th of September 2010

Great tutorial. I made one of these after discovering my favorite sweater had been victimized by a moth over the summer. Since it was a button-up, I was able to slip in the old pillow with ease. I saved a good sweater, and a really ugly pillow from the landfill. sewrogue.blogspot.com Stitch On!

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