Recycle, eh!

I've been doing a lot of clearing out lately and came across some of old shirts at the bottom of a cupboard. Delegated there no doubt by me for future recycling. So what do you do with old shirts besides ripping them up into rags? They're actually an amazing resource if you are a sewer or quilter. I used to turn old shirts into clothing for my daughter. When she got too big for that, I started to make cloth shoe bags and pillow covers out of them. Every bit of a shirt can be used - I have a friend who takes all the cuffs and collars I have left over and uses them to trim her quilts to create what she calls prairie point edgings! 

Making pillow covers is fairly easy. You just iron out the shirt, do up the buttons and lay it out neatly on a flat surface inside out. Next you cut out a large square or rectangle (depending on the size of the shirt and your pillow inserts) through both layers. Then you simply sew up all around about 1/2 inches from the edge, open up the buttons, flip the shirt open and iron. Stuff in the pillow insert, do up the buttons and you're done.