Dollar Store Dishtowel Becomes Pillow

It’s DIY day!

Dollar Tree is in full-swing Christmas, and on a recent trip I found some really cute kitchen towels with pom-pom fringe. There were several different styles and colors. I thought it would be cute to make a little pillow out of one.

I cut the strip of fringe off, leaving the stitching intact.

Then I cut the strip in half. I had considered buying more towels so I would have enough fringe to go all the way around the pillow, but decided that would kind of defeat the purpose of a dollar store craft. I wanted to use just one towel.

I laid everything out and fiddled with it a bit. My original thought was basically just fold the towel in half and put the fringe on either end, but realized that the scale would be off that way.

I ended up cutting it down to 10”x14”.

I pressed under about 1/4” on each long edge.

I cut it in half, and then stitched across the top and bottom, leaving the sides open. I was making this up as I went along, and in retrospect, it was probably unnecessary to cut it in half. I could have just folded it over and stitched one edge.

Next, I turned it right side out and sandwiched a strip of the fringe between the folded edges of one side. Pinning is very helpful here. Then I sewed straight down that edge, being sure to catch the strip of fringe in the seam. Just to be sure, I did a second seam about 1/8” over.

I repeated this on the other side, except this time I left a couple of inches open so I could stuff the pillow with polyfil. Once stuffed, I went back and sewed it closed, and again did a second seam.

For you non-sewers, I don’t see why you couldn’t make this with Fabri-tac and never sew a stitch!

Voila! A cute little decorative pillow! Total cost: $1, plus negligible cost for polyfil. I’ve had a big bag of it for over a year, used it for several different things, and I still have a ton left.

I did not wash/pre-shrink the towel ahead of time, so this is spot clean only. I’ve never had good luck with polyfil going through the washing machine.

You could whip up several of these to give as hostess gifts, or to tuck in a gift basket full of other goodies, or for unexpected drop-in visitors. (They always say that in magazines, but I’ve never been on either end of the drop-in visitor gift-giving, have you?)