Quiltingboard Forums - My first Band Pillow

The Band Director at my school gave me two of their old Band Uniforms about 9 months ago to see if I could come up with anything to make out of them, like a pillow. I finally got tired of looking at this uniform hanging next to my sewing machine. I'm pretty sure I just didn't want to work on my income taxes, so this was a good diversion. I've never done anything like this before and thought it turned out pretty good. I have one more to make.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]461999[/ATTACH]Here's the uniform before I deconstructed it.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]462000[/ATTACH]Here is is as a finished pillow. I cut a 13" block from the front to start with. The school name came from the sleeve and I simply pressed a seam allowance on the bottom and right sides and stitched it in place. The silver trim around the name patch was salvaged from the collar. I just zig-zagged it to cover up the original stitches in the black patch. The two epaulettes came from the shoulders. I just basted them in place onto my main block. The buttons were sewn back on when it was done. I ironed a fusible interfacing to the back side of the main block for stability like I do with t-shirt quilts. The black border around the block came from the sleeves. I first added fusible interfacing to the sleeves, then cut them into 4" strips.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]462006[/ATTACH]This is a picture of the back of the pillow. My pillow finished at 18" square. Fortunately for me, the uniform zipper was 16" long and a heavy duty one. It also had 3 heavy duty snaps on the back, but only the center one remains on here. The back piece wasn't quite wide enough by itself, so I used one of the pant legs to add additional fabric to finish up the back.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]462009[/ATTACH]Here it is with the zipper opened. You can see my red pillow on the inside.

I had been dreading this project for the past 9 months because I had no clue where to begin. Once I came up with a plan, it came together quite nicely. Now I'm looking forward to making the other one!