Glitzy Pillow from a Glitzy T-shirt

I'll admit there have been a few lonely days around my new house when I've wished that I, like everyone else over the age of 25 in Wisconsin, was married. My best defense to assuage those lonely thoughts has been decorating in ways that I absolutely could not get away with if a man were living here too. There is no one to tell me that I can't, so I've been girling this place up real good.

As if the craft room full of fabric and yarn and the pink master bedroom with a faux crystal chandelier weren't enough, one mopey day I decided to cheer myself up by adding sparkle to the (formerly somewhat gender neutral) guest room. I'd been using a lot of copper in the decor, and though a metallic copper sequin pillow would really pull it together.

I began my quest for copper sparkles at the fabric store. Scratch that, every fabric store. After a good deal of searching at Halloween, Thanksgiving, and even Christmas, I had to succumb to the fact that there simply isn't any copper sequin fabric to be found in Wisconsin. I optimistically spent $15 on a yard of what appeared to be copper sequin fabric from etsy. Of course, when it arrived, it was orange. Now, I love orange, I love orange more than most people, but it just isn't what the room needs.

After many months (literally, months) of searching, I gave up. There is no copper sequin fabric for sale. Period. Fine. But then. on a trip to Goodwill in December (you can always count on December for some sparkles) I found this hot mess of a sequin crop top from Target. Not copper, I admit, but for $3, I decided, it would suffice.

It wasn't quite big enough to cover the 22" pillows I'd hoped to use, but luckily I had a smaller throw pillow kicking around the house already from some other pillow shamming project I've since outgrown.

I started by sewing up the awkward arm holes to make one a "tube" with an opening at the bottom and a neck hole at the top.

Then, I slit the shirt down the back, cut off the "shoulders" and trimmed the yoke into a straight line, trying to keep as much "length" as I could to the shirt. At this point, I had created a long strip of fabric, twice the "width" of the shirt by the length of the shirt. Usually, I would have hemmed the short ends at this point, but I knew that the tissue thin jersey was just going to end up a puckered mess. So, I cut it as straight as I could (well...freehand, it's a pillow) and just went with it.

Using my old pillow sham as a template, I folded and pinned the delicate fabric up into a pocket, using the same general strategy I've used for all of the pillows, I ran two quick lines of stitching down the each side (i.e., the top and bottom of the blouse).

I turned it right side out and shoved a pillow in it. That's better. A little glitz always helps.

Update: While I couldn't justify a whole new post just to show off my second ugly goodwill top turned throw pillow, I at least wanted to update. Keep the ugly sequin tops coming, Janesville.