Turn Old Clothes Into Something Useful

                We have tons of great flea markets in town. A few months ago, we were looking around one of our favorites when Ella pointed out a couple of blocks out of what, I assume, was a horse quilt. We are a horse family so I had to buy them. The edges were pretty rough but I knew I could give them a new life. Here is how I combined one block and some old clothes to make a cute pillow for La-la.

               First, I started by squaring up the block. I wanted the edges to be as clean as possible. I took a straight edge and a rotary cutter to the raw edges to take care of the chewed-up bits. For the border pieces, I chose an old button up shirt and an old pair of jeans for the back. I wanted the pillow to be a little larger so I cut the borders to 5 inches wide I measured one pair of sides to the length of the block. I pined them in place and sewed them together using my usual half inch seam allowance. The other pair I measured to the width of the block plus the new sides and attached them. I did try to match the pattern as closely as possible.

                Pressing the borders, I used the front to measure out the backing. I cut one leg off of the jeans and ripped out one seam to open it up. This became the back and I cut the square out and pinned the front and back with right sides together. I sewed them together with a gap of about 4 inches for stuffing and turned the whole thing right-side out. For stuffing, I used poly-fil that I had in my stash. I do wish that I had stuffed it a bit fuller but It will work.

               I then pinned the gap closed and topstitched around the whole pillow. It was time for the Ella test and It passed with flying colors. She saw her little horses and got so excited. The materials for this whole project came from my collection but it can be adapted for your own fabric collection. If you quilt and have spare blocks or find an old quilt that is on its last leg, you can revive them. Quilts are too special to be thrown out. I hope you enjoyed this project. Happy crafting!

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