I am known for making pillows last forever!

In university days (over 28 years ago) my roommate and I were broke and decided to make some pillows. We chose indestructible foam chip innards with a latex backed upholstery fabric for the cover. Course we weren't smart enough to make a removable cover in those days! We made two huge 24” square pillows (floor pillows) and sundry smaller ones.

When my friend left university, she passed those old cushions onto me. She didn't like the fabric. I felt like I'd landed a goldmine! She had no idea what she gave me. I am still using those pillows 27 years later. They have been resurrected two or three times, depending on the cushion in question!

The last time I recovered them I wised up. I picked fabric to coordinate with my furniture and drapes, and I made them removable.

In fact, some of the cushions still sport the practical second covering of cotton canvas in various colours – an idea from a Martha Stewart magazine. The idea is, being full of foam chips, I could throw them in the washer and then hang them out to dry.

Then there's the bedroom pillows. Our family has dust allergies, so all pillows are hypoallergenic here. That means they have a fibrefill or foam of some sort inside them. Eventually, over time, fibrefill flattens. I wash them (yep, you heard me), and when they come out all lumpy, I don't panic. Instead, I rip the pillow open, tear the innards apart, and restuff the pillows. Then sew them closed. They are like new that way. The one drawback is that this is time consuming, but so is the alternative.

There is a way to wash pillows so they don't lump, but it's rather involved. It does work though. I take a thick thread, like a buttonhole thread, in contrasting colour and thread a long needle (I'm talking like 4-6” long) with a fairly big eye. Then sew through the pillow starting at one end and making a zigzag pattern across it so the thread enters no more than every 4-6” from itself. Don't pull really tight, but do make it snug. Knot the end. Wash the pillow. The idea is the thread/sewing will hold the fibrefill in place. When the pillow comes out of the dryer, undo the knot, pull out the thread, and fluff up the pillow.

If all else fails, when someone asks you what you want for Christmas, tell them 'new pillows'! I believe I've bought four pillows in 27 years of marriage that way.

 

Those are a few ideas that work for me when it comes to pillows...