Turn Your Unused T-shirt into a Pillowcase

A simple, eco-friendly craft you can do is to make pillowcases out of your old or extra T-shirts. T-shirt pillowcases can be used for regular pillows, sofa pillows, and if you are using a small T-shirt for this craft, you can even use the pillowcase for a small pillow. Pillowcases can also be made from a sweatshirt or any other shirt that will look good recycled as a pillowcase. Here is how to make a pillowcase out of a T-shirt.

For the recycled T-shirt pillowcase craft, you will need:

Old T-shirts,

Scissors,

Sewing kit,

And chalk to mark sewing lines.

Craft preparations: Begin this craft by selecting the T-shirts you want recycled into pillowcases. The T-shirt recycled for this craft should still be durable; if it rips from gently pulling the cloth, it is too old to be recycled as a pillowcase. White T-shirts that are yellowed and shirts with excessive stains do not make good pillowcases, unless you are going for the recycled garage look. You will want the T-shirt pillowcase to blend in with or contrast the existing colors of sheets, furniture, and furniture coverings. If the T-shirt has a design, the design will have to either be recycled into the pillowcase design or else make the bottom side of the pillowcase. The T-shirt could also be turned inside out for the pillowcase, but that would require rehemming the bottom seam over.

Measure for sewing: Take the T-shirt and turn it inside out. Line the T-shirt up with the pillow. The T-shirt should be at least an inch wider than the pillow. Make sure it is long enough to go all the way down the pillow. It should be a couple inches longer than the pillow to allow for the sewing across the collar. Mark on the T-shirt with chalk where to tuck the sides in if they are too wide. The part where the sleeves are tends to be narrower than the lower part. So usually, it is necessary to take a hem in on each side. The pillowcase should be 1-2 inches wider than the pillow.

Sewing the craft: Using a sewing needle and thread or a sewing machine, start sewing along the chalk lines to hem up the sides of the inside-out T-shirt. Now draw a line from one shoulder to the other. This sewing guideline should be an even straight line that hits the lowest part of the collar of the T-shirt. Sew along this line.

Finishing touches: Invert the pillowcase and test it on the pillow to make sure it fits. Then make any necessary sewing adjustments. Do you intend to keep it a pillowcase or will you take out the sewing to restore it to a t-shirt? If it's a temporary pillowcase, you will have to put up with the lumps from the sleeves and extra cloth and take out the sewing before repeated washings unevenly fade the exposed parts of the cloth. If the pillowcase is not going to be reused as a T-shirt, cut the sleeves off to reduce the extra cloth. You can even cut off all the extra cloth outside the hems. The unwanted cloth can be reused as rags or cut in strips to tie plants or mark flowering garden plants such as Bearded Iris. The sleeves can be reused as headbands, used for the Santa or Elf hat craft, worn under baseball caps for the ghetto look, used in future sewing crafts, or simply used as rags.

Now all you need to do is invert the pillowcase and put it on a pillow. You now have a recycled T-shirt pillowcase. A sweatshirt will also make a good recycled pillowcase, especially for a wider, square pillow. Hem the sweatshirt in the same manner as the T-shirt. You will need to cut off the sleeves. The cut sleeves can be recycled into the removable leg warmers craft, the Santa or Elf hat craft, or other cut sleeve crafts.