Thrifty Art Thursday: Sweatshirt Projects

I’ve been on a cleaning and organizing kick recently. My house tends to stay a lot closer to chaos than to order, and sometimes finding a flat surface that’s empty is a challenge. Recently I’ve been craving order and empty flat surfaces, so I’ve been getting rid of stuff. In my quest I came across a blue sweatshirt I was given. It was like new, but I rarely wear pullover sweatshirts, so I decided a sweatshirt hack was in order.

First out of the sleeves I made myself a pair of legwarmers. It was super easy, I just cut off both sleeves, cut off the cuffs, and then ran a hem straight up the slanted side so that I had two tubes. A little careful 80’s style slouching later, I had some awesome leg warmers.

Then I had the body left, so I decided to make some gifts for the family for Imbolc, a celebration of the returning sun, and Brigid, goddess of the hearth fire, healing, and inspiration. Since we’re deep in the depths of dark winter here in Michigan I thought that some footwarmers for bed would be in order. I love my hot water bottles, but they’re starting to wear out, and I need something for a replacement.

First I cut the sweatshirt into four mostly equal sections. Then I put the squares together and sewed all but a small opening closed with my sewing machine, flipped the squares and stuffed them. I used wheat berries, since I have a ton of them sitting around since the fam went gluten-free. Rice would work fine too, or buckwheat hulls if you’ve got them. Then I added herbs to the stuffing to make them smell nice and to bring pleasant dreams.

I used:

cloves

powdered cedar

bay leaves

lavender

Other options would be cinnamon chips, and cloves and allspice for a pumpkin pie scent, or pine, cedar, and bay for a more manly scent. My youngest daughter had a blast helping me stuff the pillows with wheat berries and herbs. We did it all on the floor for easy vacumeing cleanup. Then I carefully sewed the opening closed using the ladder stitch.

They were a little plain at this point so I decided to spruce them up by personalizing them with embroidery. I just left the knots on the outside because they were already sewn up, but I like the raw look of it, and it was really easy to embroider on because filling pulls the pillow tight, just like a frame would.