Then my feelings got butter stains all over the skirt and the opportunity to return my purchase flew out the window then and there.
So here we are two years later, Me and Skirt, and Skirt is still wearing her original tags.
Skirt said, “I deserve to come out and play!”
I said, “Not on my ass you’re not.”
Will any skirt work for this project? Sorta. Thicker fabric like corduroy, denim and velvet would work best, as would any skirt with straight lines. This zebra skirt is actually slightly A-lined but you don’t notice it at all once it’s stuffed. This is important: look for skirts that have a lining or inner waistband. You can glue the seams together at the bottom pretty neatly, but in order to get the top to lay right you will want it to grip onto something. By gluing the inner waistbands to each other (not the actual skirt fabric), your pillow form can eventually slide up to fill the skirt right to the top of the waist band. Gosh, I hope that made sense.
Can I use hot glue? Yes but it will fall apart after a couple weeks of regular use. I suggest Aileen’s fabric glue (about $6 a bottle). It dries 100% clear and the bond is strong enough to last through the washing machine’s gentle cycle (I speak from experience on this front).
The key here is to stuff the pillow form, pin it inside clear away from the seams, and THEN get the glue out. When you lay down the glue, run a generous zig-zag along the inner seam, but also run a thin line half an inch from the edge.
The clothespins keep everything clamped together as it dries (No clothespins? Use paperclips).
And that’s it. Boom Chaka Lacka. Hope this makes sense. Let me know if you have questions or concerns. I know the concept of gluing fabric can be intimidating, but you’ll just have to trust me, it’s more fun than you think!
PS: Have a long flowing skirt that isn’t just right for pillow making material? Turn it into curtain in less than three minutes.
What a great idea! Thanks for the post. 🙂
this is sooooo cool!
Your posts make me giggle. 🙂 Thank you.
Love the pillow and I snorted vitamin water out my nose when the zebra appeared. Fantabulous gluing tips!
Skirt and I, in fact MANY skirts and I have had the same conversation. I love how you turned it around!
Okay…this is cool and…I can totally glue fabric! I’ve got a few lonely skirts in my closet that somehow shrunk over the years, all the while just hanging in my closet!! 😛 Anyway, thanks for this genius idea! You Rock! 🙂
Hi Peaches!
The pillow looks fantactic!
It wasn’t until the last sentence of this post that I was reminded of the curtain you made a few months back. But when you wrote it as a “long flowing skirt” here it made me remember a great skirt I bought in an indian-family owned store once while pretending to attend an accounting conference for work many years ago (b/c even an accountant shouldn’t have to be subjected to that). It had little jingly bells on the adjustable waist band and came to my ankles and made me generally hate my shape while wearing it. Many years ago it was relegated to the sewing pile but never touched as it was, ahem, just too pretty to cut up.
Anyway, about 90 seconds ago I took it out of that pile and threw it over the top of one of those cheap white netted canopies that I had over my 4yo’s bed. The skirt gathers to a whole about an inch in diameter at the top if pulled tight enough and looks really nice. If it weren’t for you, that skirt would have eventually been moth food for sho.
Also, as I was putting it over the canopy I wondered to myself what it would be like to have you look around my house for about 4 minutes and show me 7 dozen obvious things like that that I’ve been missing all these years. 🙂
lol!! I can relate to the mind vs reality mix up! haha.. all your ideas are fantastic:)
thank you Peaches dear, as a woman who owns SEVERAL sewing machines, and makes oodles of pillows… I can still totally relate!! …. hmmm now to head to the wardrobe and find that hot-pink silk skirt from the 80s… I KNEW i kept it for a reason ;D
Hot pink silk? Get it out! Let it dance!
BEAUTIFUL! I don’t sew (only buttons, and if I have to…) so that is wonderful. I have clothespins and know how to use them!