Last week I posted about my fight with pillow stuffing and how I’ve gone on a quest to figure out what works best.

Shredded Paper

Shredded Fleece

Plastic Bags

All Sorts of stuff – bits of yarn, thread, fleece, paper, and dryer lint.

After making 4 small pillows and stuffing them, I think I’ve finally got it down. Here is what I found out.

1. No matter what you are using as a recycled material, shredding it up is the best way to go.

2. Fabric DOES NOT shred well in a paper shredder. Trust me, don’t do it. That’s right, I tried it. I thought “this is going to be so awesome” but in fact it was a bit scary. Imagine grinding wheels not stopping and the whole thing convulsing and buckling like an alien was going to pop out of it.

3. Don’t use anything that will rot. Stay away from things with moisture in them.

4. Be mindful of noise. While shredded paper was the most easily sourced + most easily shredded material, it’s noisy. It crunches around and eventually flattens out and compacts. I think it would be great for things like floor pillows or decorative pillows.

Then from that, I decided I really liked paper and fleece the most. What would that be like together? Perfect.

I’m okay with the noise of it. For the pillow I’m planning (the one with the woven top), I’m going to make two pillows in one. It will be a floor pillow to sit on. So the bottom part I’ll hard pack with shredded paper. And then the The 2 inch thick “pillow top” will be over stuffed (but not quite hard packed) with shredded fleece.

There are a lot of options for decorative pillows (any of the above will work great), but for comfort I found fleece and (oddly enough) plastic bags work the best for over stuffed big comfy pillows. Shredded paper adds great structure to any pillow.

The batting over it all really opens up the options because it gives a nice smooth surface to your pillow.

I’m excited to get started on the pillow form for my big pillow project. :)

Kristin

ps – I labeled all my pillows and I’m keeping them around for reference for all my future pillow projects. I think some fun little slipcovers will be fun to make too.

pss – Pillow Redress Part I