Flannel Shirt Plaid Pillow Covers

 

One element of my Christmas theme this year is "plaid".  And I have a lot of throw pillows. And they don't really go with my Christmas decor.  And they're pretty necessary, as my couch is on its last legs.
SO I had the idea to make pillow covers for my throw pillows out of plaid shirts that I could find at Goodwill.  Making them out of shirts, rather than fabric makes it much easier, because the buttons let you insert the pillow easily.  Plus the buttons and pockets add cute details to your pillow.

After a bunch of trips to Goodwill - I found that there aren't many plaid flannel shirts out there - people hang on to their flannel!  Plus, I wanted to stick with somewhat traditional Christmas colors.

I have made three pillows so far and I'm still on the lookout for more shirts.

Here are the shirts and pillows I started with:

Step 1:

Turn the shirt inside out and position the pillow where you want it.

Then you can cut off excess shirt or not.  Then you start pinning, with the pillow inside.  I learned after two pillows it's best to pin tightly against the pillow.

Then, carefully unbutton the inside out shirt and take out the pillow.  Then you sew right where your pins are marking, taking them out as you go.  You can see the red stitched line in the pic below, if you look closely.  Most tutorials I read warned to get a men's large shirt to have plenty of fabric, but this was a small women's shirt and I just used a small pillow and didn't worry about using some of the collar and arms.

 

The red one turned out ok, even though it had a little extra room in the cover, but I love how this green one turned out!