sweatshirt pillow

We have a few small uncovered throw pillows I got a few years ago for Savannah's daybed. A few years ago and I have yet to cover them. Typical around here. :)
Sawyer's adopted one for some reason and uses it for tv watching or sometimes in his bed at night. I decided that would be a perfect pillow for him to take to school for rest time and that we could together pick out some fabric to cover it or make some cool design with his name on it; one way or another, make a special take to school pillow for him.

So yesterday I ran over to the Mart of the Wal, since any other fabric/craft stores are on the other side of town from us. Well, turns out after we get into Walmart they are remodeling their store and did away with the fabric section. Not even any scraps left. Bummer. So I decide maybe while we're there I should just go over and see if there are any cheap sheet sets, maybe even a cheap crib sheet that I can just use as fabric. Found nothing cost efficient there.
However.
Right next to the crib sheets and blankets were of course the baby/toddler clothes and Sawyer loves to "pretend" to clothes shop these days... if he's on foot he wanders around the clothes racks touching things, pulling things off the rack to show me, making all sorts of funny comments to me like "oooh, I like this! Do you like this mom? This is a cute one! Should we get this one Mom?" So of course he's busy doing this in a small perimeter around me while I peruse the baby sheets. Suddenly he finds a rack of sweatshirts and goes berserk. You see, he's been a little obsessed with robots lately for some strange reason. He builds them with his toys and draws them all day (at least he says that's what the drawings are) and he wants me to read this book with him at least three times a day. So what does he find in this pile of sweatshirts at Walmart? A lovely robot sweatshirt. And he's sold. "Get this mom? For me mom? Ask dad mom? So soft!! Want this mom!" And he will not forget about the stupid sweatshirt throughout the rest of the store. (Not that it's a stupid sweatshirt... just definitely not my taste!!)
Suddenly it dawns on me... I'm finding nothing to make a pillowcase out of. Sawyer's in love with a cheesy (albeit very soft and comfy) $3 robot sweatshirt. Why not make the pillowcase out of the sweatshirt?? Should be easy enough right?

It was!















Here's what we did yesterday and what you can do with an old favorite (or cheesy walmart you'd be embarrassed to wear) sweatshirt:















Measure your pillow to get the right fit and cut off the collar and sleeves of your sweatshirt, plus any excess to get to your size. I grabbed a size 4 sweatshirt and our pillow is a 12 inch square, which turned out to fit perfectly by just cutting off as close to the collar and sleeves as possible.















Then simply stitch up the three unfinished sides, leaving the bottom sweatshirt band alone for the pillow opening. It's that easy! It seriously took me five minutes.












I also put just a couple tabs of velcro across the opening just so he's not so tempted to pull it out all the time. Works just as well without that though!





















Sawyer loves it, it's super soft, and I have to admit I like the robot print on the pillow much better than on a shirt!