Upcycle DIY : shirt to pillow case

One afternoon, I was sitting, itching to get my fingers in a project and thinking about this skirt I had seen that had a poem embroidered on it. I was seriously thinking about and wanting to try that but I didn't have the right skirt handy or fabric to make the right skirt so..... but just as my thoughts were about to move on to something else, I suddenly had the thought to embroider a favorite quote onto a pillow!! After all, I had several throw pillows that needed recovering anyway.
I started walking around the basement looking for something I could turn into a pillow case (random, I know. but true!). First thing I see?! A yellow oxford hanging in the laundry room! BINGO! All the boys had outgrown it but I  made a quick call to Mama to make sure it was okay for me to go to town with it;) She gave the go ahead and I was set! YES!!
Other than the embroidery (which is totally optional-- there are so many ways you could embellish this pillow case!! the buttons could be in the front OR the back-- it's up to you) this has to be the *easiest* and fastest way to recover a pillow! Read on for the tutorial!
 {You thought I'd never get to it didn't you!}

Materials:

button up oxford shirt | pillow | straight pins | sewing machine  

{optional: embroidery needle, thread, frame}
IF you are embroidering, skip down to the middle-ish and follow those instructions before following the steps to create the pillow case!

It would help if you started with a clean and pressed shirt.... but I supposed that's really not necessary! haha {It wasn't pressed here because I was embroidering first}

Make sure the pillow you are recovering is good to go-- I had to stitch down a little trimming.
{the photos hide it well- this pillow was absolutely nasty & stained from little ones sleeping on it and slobbering.... so desperate for something fresh!}

Button your shirt, turn it inside out, lay it out flat and insert your pillow. Move it around until it's in the desired place and then pull the shirt edges out to match eachother before pining all around the pillow.

Leaving the pins in place, unbutton your shirt and carefully remove the pillow.

For this next step, you can either sew around the pins first and then trim off excess fabric. Or vise-versa. Either way, you want to sew quite closely around the pins. Insert your pillow after the initial stitching to see if you like the fit. (I didn't sew close enough and my case turned out a little loose) After you trim off the excess material, it would be a good idea to go back and add some stitches at the corners for a little extra reinforcement.

Now turn it right side out, insert your pillow, button 'er up and voila! You're finished!! Now take some pictahs and send 'em my way pretty please! diligent4christ1993{at}hotmail{dot}com

::EMBROIDERING::

First, insert your pillow in the buttoned shirt and add a few marks to give you an idea of where your design should be... or at least where the edges of your pillow will be. Then, using a piece of paper roughly the same size as the space you will be using, sketch a rough draft of what you would like to stitch.

Then write/draw your design on the fabric {I used a blue highlighter. definitely not genius but it was all I had handy and I tested it first to make sure it would come out of the material when I was finished!}

Now as to the actual embroidery stitches and all, I'm no expert. I use {and I *just* found out the real name} what is known as the split back stitch. {only I do it slightly different than pictured...} I just stumbled across Sarah's Hand Embroidery Tutorials though and it is an amazing site! It looks like it covers everything you'll need!

So just work on your embroidery and then when you're finished, turn the shirt inside out and hand rinse it gently with warm water to remove your marks. Soaking it in a cold rinse before you wring it out to dry is helpful too. Once the shirt is dry & pressed, you're ready to head back up to the top and make a pillow case!

Was this tutorial helpful? Any questions I can answer for you?!