Recycling Old Plaid Shirts

I bought some nice plaid shirts (four) for Steve two Christmas' ago... Well, they apparently weren't the best of quality, and the right elbow ripped open (about 4-5" big!) on each shirt. This could have been a combination of the quality of the shirts, but Steve also admitted that his right elbow rubs on some jutting angle of his work desk all day. I kept telling Steve to stop wearing these shirts, we need to get rid of them- but being a boy, he refused. So I finally took them out of his closet and gave him some options - we could throw them away and forget about them, or give me some time and I will re purpose the shirts. Of course he chose the re-purposing, but I knew it would take me a while to get around to fixing them up.

So I decided to make a pillow case (or as I thought, 2) out of the four shirts. So they all have snap closures and pockets on the front, so getting nice long pieces out of the material was only from the back paneling of the shirt. I cut the back pieces out and realized I only had enough material for 2/3rds of a pillowcase! So I decided to only use 3 of the shirts to make a front piece of the pillowcase, and plain brown cotton fabric for the back. I wanted to add an extra special touch, so I added the snap closures on the side you insert the pillow (so you can snap it closed and not see the pillow!). I've admitted this before, but I am the worst quilter and crafter possible only because I get SO annoyed with measuring and making nice cuts with my material. I mean, I made sure to make sure the final product fit the pillow, but to get to that point, it's all messy and guessy.

So I feel better (and hopefully Steve feels better) that his shirts have a new use (and it's a really soft pillowcase!). And, despite the messy measurements, the pillowcase fits perfectly (note to self: do not put in dryer).