Pillow Shams from Repurposed Sari Wrap Skirts

I love using items in a way that was not intended for their original purpose. I'm always on the lookout for my next project.

When a few skirts that came in with too much damage I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  I previously repurposed neck ties into pillows but the neck ties were wearing out so I thought repurposing sari wrap skirts into pillow covers would be perfect!

Full disclosure I am not a seamstress.  I tend to "sew outside the lines" but I wanted to share this with you with the hopes it may inspire you to create something of your own. 

Here is the skirts I decided to recycle.  I don't know if you can tell but there are 3 skirts in this photo.  They are beautiful but the stains a and holes just made them unwearable.

The first step was to measure the pillows I am recovering.

Next, I needed to decide on a pattern.  The skirts are beautiful as is but I thought it would be fun to add pieces from the different skirts and layers. 

I decided to cut out squares and rectangles. Since I made 2 pillow covers I played around with the cutouts until I was happy with the look.  I did this for both pillows.  

Since I want to make this cover washable I need pieces for the back as well.  Instead of 4 pieces I cut out 2 but I made sure to have them a little larger than my original measurements.  This way the backside layer will overlap and I don't need to add a zipper.  You certainly don't need to create your cover this way but I don't like sewing in zippers.

I think it looks pretty good so it was time to start sewing.

First I sewed two of the pieces together so that instead of having 4 pieces I ended up with 2.  Next I sewed the two pieces together.  Here is what I have so far:  

When sewing things like this I alway like to iron the creases as I think it make the finished pieces look better.  The left image isthe top of the pillow.  The right image is back back side of the pillow. 

Once you have your two sides ironed it's time to sew the pieces together.  To do this put the right sides together so the seams are shown on the outside.  This fabric is extremely slippery so I pinned all the edges before starting to sew. 

This definitely made it much easier. 

Now the moment of truth...to see if it worked. And voila! It did!  The seams aren't perfect and the lines are not exactly straight but I love them!  I didn't measure enough overlap for the reverse of the pillow  so it opens up but I had some velcro from a previous project which solved that problem.


You can see the finished pillows at the bottom of this post. 

I would love to hear what you think and to see what you've come up with. 

If  you would like your project displayed, send me your photos and I'll it it to this blog post.