How to make a cushion cover from a favourite old T-shirt

What do you do with a favourite old t-shirt once is gets too tatty to wear or gets some of those annoying little holes in the front (what are they all about anyway?)

There are lots of things you can do with old T-shirts, sleep in them, turn them into bags, stretch them over canvas to make art or if they are really scratty just chop them up and make fabulous cleaning rags. Or you can do what I’ve done here and turned them into cushion or throw pillow covers.

Today I’m joining the Pinterest Challenge. I LOVE the Pinterest Challenge, each month a bunch of creative bloggers get together and have a good old rummage through their pinterest boards and find a project to actually try out. We all pin a lot of ideas right? We can’t possibly try out all of them but it is fun to pick something and make it happen now and again.

This month we have a theme of Father’s Day or Man Cave, so I chose to make some new cushion cover from my son’s old t shirts for his bedroom/man cave. This pin was one that inspired me, but this uses the envelope method to make the covers so I adapted the idea a bit.

Our oldest son had a couple of favourite t-shirts that he’d had for years and was very attached to. They really had got too tatty to wear, holes around the neckline and some holes that had become noticable.

The Star wars racing car t-shirt had some of the small holes on the front at waist height so the size of the cushion cover I could make from it was smaller. With the Sherlock t-shirt the damage was only around the neck.

To make a cushion cover or throw pillow from an old T-shirt all you need is:

A T-Shirt
A cushion pad
A sewing machine and thread
Sharp scissors suitable for cutting fabric, I used pinking shears but you can use regular straight scissors.

I used 2 slightly different methods to make the 2 cushions covers. Because the Star Wars/racing car T-shirt had holes on the front the cushion would have to be much smaller. I didn’t have a cushion pad small enough so I tried stuffing the T-Shirt cover directly. For the Sherlock T-Shirt there was less damage so I was able to make a cover with a proper cushion pad inside.

The method is pretty much the same for both but with a small difference which I’ll point out as we go along.

First turn the T-shirt inside out and then lay it out flat on a smooth surface. Smooth out any creases and secure with a few pins to hold the layers in place. Cut through both layers. Cut off the bottom, top and sides. The highest little hole on this shirt was where I’ve marked with a red arrow, so you can see this determined where I would cut and therefore how big this cushion cover could be.

Admittedly this really doesn’t look very straight does it? I’m sure it’s just the angle of the photo!!!

Now you are going to sew around all 4 sides of the square leaving a gap on one side for turning. When stitching this T-shirt jersey fabric use a fairly long, very very slight zig zag stitch and GO SLOWLY. If you wizz along at full speed the fabric layers will stretch and slip and everything will pull out of shape. Take your time, go slow and you’ll be fine.

This is the smaller cushion, the one I stuffed directly into the cover so the gap does not need to be big. 3-4 inches is fine.

Turn the cover right side out through the gap and then stuff with fibre fill or the innards of an old pillow or cushion. Fold the seam allowance of the gap in and the ladder stitch or slip stitch the gap closed.

When making the other cover, the larger one with a cushion pad insert, just stitch around 3 sides and turn out the cover. Then the cushion pad can slide straight in.

Fold the seam allowance in on the open side and slip stitch or ladder stitch the gap closed as before. This is a little more hand stitching than the other cushion but having a pad inside does make a smoother cushion.

You could always close the cushion cover on the sewing machine just by topstitching across, that’s much quicker but not quite so neat.

This idea is really quick and easy. You can use an interfacing to stabilise the stretchy T-Shirt fabric but, and I hope this doesn’t sound really bad, for a man cave I’m not sure it’s worth it! In our son’s room these cushions will be used under trays, to lean on when gaming, be thrown around, end up on the floor etc. They will take a battering, they are practical enough as it is, they don’t need to look pristine. They can be slung in the washing machine to be freshened up, although the stuffing inside might need a bit of fluffing up afterwards.

This is the finished cushions in our living room and not our son’s bedroom/man cave! I’m afraid I can’t let that be seen, it’s not pretty! The door stays shut and I really don’t go in very often.

2 favourite T-shirts turned into 2 cushions or throw pillows in about 30 minutes in total. Perfect for old band T-Shirts or souvenir T-Shirts from special trips.

Another equally easy idea to upcycle an old T-shirt is this simple reusable gift bag idea.