Pocket Pillow from an Old Shirt, Easy Upcycling Project with Minimal Sewing

I had the sewing machine out on the dining room table to make some repairs to a few old shirts. One of them wasn’t going to survive so I set it off to the side thinking I’d use the fabric when I needed to adjust tension or run a test stitch. Then I remembered the throw pillow with the busted seam and figured I’d play around with a quick project idea…

… and this is what happened. A super easy to make pillow with a pocket for a notepad and a pen.

Minimal sewing required, just four straight lines. I didn’t add any embellishments or edging or fancy trim. I didn’t even measure! (*gasp* the horrors, I totally guessed placement by eye.) This was just a spur of the moment project and I wanted to see how it would go. Now that it turned out well and the pillow is getting some use, I might dig around the closet and see what else I can make out of old shirts.

Supplies needed for this project:

An old button shirt.
An old throw pillow.
Thread, scissors, and the usual notions…

A quick how to…

Like I said, I didn’t even measure anything for this project, I just did everything by eye. I turned the shirt inside out while buttoned closed and smoothed it out as if I were going to fold it up and put in a drawer. I played around with the placement of where I wanted the pocket to be on the outside of the pillow and stuck a pin along where I wanted the line to be.

I sewed a straight line up the entire right side.
Then I guesstimated the width I wanted for the pillow and did the same on the left.

I found where I wanted the top and bottom to be by placing the pillow on the shirt and sewed straight lines across the top and bottom.

Then I trimmed off all the extra fabric. Unbuttoned the shirt and turned it right side out again, poked the corners a bit to shape.

To finish I put the old throw pillow inside and re-buttoned the shirt buttons to close it up. I didn’t even take the old cover off the other throw pillow, I just put the whole thing in there.