Friday, December 18, 2015

Making T-Shirt Pillow Case to Match T-Shirt Quilt

I have been making a Marvel super hero quilt for Princess Three for Christmas. With that, we planned on using some of the extra fabric and making a sham pillow case for a body pillow so she could use it for a bed spread someday. 

We had a sweat shirt and a baby superman outfit that is in sweatshirt fabric and we didn't want to mix the textures on the quilt so those ended up being used on the pillow along with extra fabric.
 
I cut the back off the little outfit making it flatter and I also pried off the metal snap buttons on the front of the shirt. I had to cut back the edges on the little feet a bit so they didn't stick out looking odd. 
 
To get the snaps off of clothes, you carefully put a small screwdriver or butter knife in under the snap being careful not to pinch any of the fabric. Once it is under the snap, twist the screwdriver to force the snap up. 
 
If you don't want to loose the dimension, you can always put on buttons but I didn't think the outfit needed them and I was able to line up the pattern and sew it together so it was one piece rather than two. 
 
Even if something had buttons on it, you can still sew it closed and leave the buttons on the front. Check out my other t-shirt quilt posts as there are many different items I put on them and show how to do that. 

I talk in one of the videos I have posted on this post about how you want to pick patterns of fabric that don't have an "up" side. The two pictures I have of the red and black comic pattern and the superman print both can be placed in any direction and it doesn't matter. However, the "Thor" print was an issue as it was printed on the length wise of the fabric which made me have to cut it and sew it in the middle to keep the print going up and down. 
 
I didn't have enough to make the entire size needed for the pillowcase so I added strips of sweatshirt fabric from the sleeves of the sweatshirt we used in the middle on each edge. I did have a thin strip of the "Thor" fabric going in the right direction that I could sew onto the sweatshirt arm to make a nice top hem / trim. 
 
I had one small piece of "Thor fabric left but it was facing sideways so I thought if I could just cut out each little "Thor" and sew the individually on the red sweat fabric, I could turn them the right direction to make it look like a frame for the back edge. I liked how the red edges tied the center sweatshirt in to the entire top. 
 
One other thing I really liked with this was that it gave me a place to sew on the little cute tags from some of the shirts. I was able to sew them on the bottom of the red center piece and it gives it a bit more character. 
 
The back side was some little pajama pants that I found and a Captain America shield that didn't make the cut for the quilt. I don't like how I offset the shirt now looking at it and wish I had just sewed the shield rather than making it square but the backing fabric was so thin that I thought it needed the thickness of the t-shirt. Looking back, I think I should have used a backing for the entire thing but it is always easier to look back and say that than to see it before going in. 
 
Always make sure when making anything with that thinner cotton and actually, any fabric that frays, that you surg or zig-zag the inside so that it doesn't fall apart when you wash it as it would be sad to do all that work and then have it be destroyed after a few washes. 
 
I did what I could to make it so it would last and hope that Princess Three likes it. I think it really came out cute and I suggest you watch the videos before making anything as it gives ideas and suggestions that I have learned over the years.    

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