29 November 2010

red sweater pillow

I've had this sweater sitting in my drawer for years. It's a brilliant red, chunky knit, and I love it...in theory. But it just doesn't look good on me. It accentuates all the wrong areas.

I haven't been able to let it go. Maybe if I lose weight/tone this/tone that, it will look better. But that hasn't happened. I've been thinking for a while about making it into a cozy pillow, only I couldn't bring myself to cut into it. Then last week, my slowly deteriorating orange pillow cover finally bit the dust. I grabbed my scissors.


  • I cut the bottom of the sweater just under the arms. 
  • I turned it inside out and sewed the freshly cut edge together, to keep it from unraveling.
  • I sewed one third of the way in, from each side, on the finished edge side (the former waist/bottom of the sweater).
  • I turned it right side out.
  • I gently squished the pillow form through the opening (the middle third of the finished edge side).
  • I sewed snaps in the open section so I could remove the pillow cover for washing.
  • A few snips, a few snaps, and it was done!

As I was snuggling on the couch with my new pillow, soaking up the new Pottery Barn holiday catalog, I saw this:

Don't you just love when that happens?
:)