Remembering Sierra

I wrote a couple months ago about my dear niece Sierra,

whom we lost this summer.

I wanted to make some special gifts for Christmas this year

to remember her by.

I saw some luminaries

on the ThatsWhatCheSaid blog...

... and went to work making some of my own,

with pictures of Sierra. 

I also had some of Sierra's t-shirts,

which I planned to use to make a quilt.

However, there were several shirts left over,

so I decided to use them in another project:

pillows.

I searched Pinterest and found instructions;

here's what I did, with my modifications.

First,

carefully cut the front of the t-shirt from the back.

Iron a generous piece of interfacing to the area you are planning to use.

I just used, I dunno, whatever interfacing they had on sale at Joann's.

I decided ahead of time what size pillow I wanted to make,

and trimmed the piece to that size.

Important!  If you have a 12" square pillow form,

you don't need to add seam allowance.

So your finished t-shirt piece will be 12" square.

As you can see from my photo,

I ended up adding borders to make the front the right size.

Go nuts with this!

Maybe you just need borders down one side.  That works!

If you're doing several (and get distracted by the Great British Bake-Off, like I did)

you might want to do all your math-ing and label your pieces with Post-Its.

Now, for the back.

I will do the math for you!

Whatever size your pillow form is,

you will cut TWO pieces:

the size of the form for one side,

and  the size of the form,

divided by 2,

plus 2 1/2 " for the other side.

Confused?

Well, for a 12" pillow,

you will cut two pieces, 

each 12" along one side,

and 12" divided by 2 (which is 6")

plus 2 1/2" (which is 8 1/2") for the other.

SO.

You will end up with the front,

which is 12" by 12"

and two back pieces,

which are 12" by 8 1/2".

Along one side that is the pillow length,

(the 12" side, in this example)

turn under 1/4" once, then again, and iron it.

Sew along the ironed part.

Now, you're going to add the back to the front.

Pin one of the pillow length pieces to one side of the front...

... then do the other side.

Now you can just sew all around the outside edge with a 1/4" seam.

After you sew,

turn the pillow right side out, 

iron,

and you'll be ready to stuff your pillow form in!

As you can see,

the two back pieces make a nice pocket,

so you can remove the pillow cover to wash it, etc.

And how did my sister like the pillows?

She liked them quite a bit.