tee-shirt pillowcase tutorial

Ezzie needed a mini pillow for his rest time at school. I decided to put to use my stash of cotton tee-shirts to make him a cozy little pillowcase.

Here is what you will need:

a small pillow, crafts stores have these

a laundered adult med. -large cotton tee

button and carpet thread, I use this because it is nice and sturdy

contrasting cotton tee-shirt scrap

scissors

alphabet stamps

fabric marker

1. Place the pillow on the bottom half of the teeshirt and eyeball it to see where you should cut the tee. Basically you are going to cut the top portion (sleeves and neck-hole)of the tee shirt off.

2. Slide a piece of cardboard or a book under the portion of the pillowcase that you wish to embellish. Use the fabric marker to apply ink to the stamp and stamp your name/words onto the fabric.

3. Fold piece of contrasting scrap fabric in half and carefully cut out a halved-heart shape. Unfold the heart and using a running stitch, sew it to the pillowcase. I sewed into to the corner because I knew Ezzie might not want the applique against his cheek.

4. Turn the shirt inside out and sew a running stitch along the top (the edge that you cut). Knot the end.

5. Turn the tee right side out, if you wish to have contrasting seam showing, otherwise keep it inside out.

6. Use a running stitch to sew the hemmed bottom of the teeshirt closed.

7. Now your pillowcase is completely closed up. With the un-embellished side facing you, carefully cut a straight line through the center of one layer of the pillowcase. Think of it as making a giant buttonhole in the backside of the case. Using a running stitch, sew a seam around the "buttonhole".

8. Pop that pillow in it's new case and make a second one so your wee babe will always have a clean pillow for rest time.