How to Recycle Sweaters Into Pillow Covers

It never fails: a sweater shrinks in the wash, gets a stain or rip in an unfortunate spot or just starts to wear out. Instead of throwing it out or using it for rags, take that unwearable sweater and use it to dress up your couch or bed instead of your body-you don't even have to hide that it was once a favored part of your wardrobe! By making a pillow cover you can swap out your styles without taking up extra room in your linen closet.

Things You'll Need

• Discarded sweater
• Ruler or measuring tape
• Scissors
• Pins
• Coordinating fabric scraps
• Needle and thread or sewing machine
• Zipper or hook-and-loop tape
• Beads, buttons, trim and other embellishments
• Pillow form

Instructions

1. 

   Lay out your sweater and measure the usable area to determine what size pillow form to use. The most common sizes for a square pillow form are 14, 16, 18 and 20 inches, so you'll need to pick one of those measurements, add a bit for ease (the pillows aren't flat after all, so you'll need to allow for thickness as well as the width and length) and then a bit more for any seams you'll have to sew.

2. Trim away extra fabric, like the arms or excess length at the bottom, leaving enough for turning under seams.

3. 

   Fill any openings, like a v-neck or large tears, with coordinating scrap fabric or cutaway parts of the sweater.

4. 

   Set the zipper or hook-and-loop tape along the longest open seam first, before sewing up your other sides, to make aligning it easier. How visible or hidden the zipper stays is up to you and could even be incorporated as part of the decorative nature of the pillow cover.

5. 

   Sew up any other seams on your three sides that might be open, leaving the zipper at least partially unzipped, so you can turn the pillow cover right-side-out when finished.

6. 

   Embellish your pillow cover to hide any flaws that made the sweater unwearable in the first place. Hide a stain by adding beads and buttons to embellish around it, carrying the design through to other areas of the cover. Cover a hole with pieces of fabric or a patch, stitching around the hole to avoid any further raveling.

Tips & Warnings

• Using existing seams, when possible, will cut down your sewing time.

• If you use a cardigan for your cover, you can skip the zipper and use the existing button placket to insert the pillow form and remove the cover for washing.

• Open up the leftover sleeves of your sweater, stitch them opposite each other (wrist to elbow) to create a tube and insert a bolster form for a coordinating look.

• Don't restrict yourself to square pillows-give circles a try too, even if it means having to add a strip around the sides (that's what sleeves are for).

Resources

• Eco-Friendly Pillowforms