Eco solution for stuffing

I have two solutions.

1. Reuse a synthetic/polyester pillow. Buy yourself a nice new pillow for your bed. I like this one from Devon Duvets via John Lewis website. It is stuffed with unbleached, untreated sustainable British Wool and is suitable for allergy sufferers. Unlike a synthetic pillow, these need proper old fashioned plumping up regularly (I learnt a great trick from Downton Abbey - throw it to the floor a couple of times).

Throw your old pillow in the washing machine at 30 degrees. Synthetic filling will come out all clean, but a bit misshapen and clumped together. Grab your seam ripper and open it up, then pull out small bits at a time and shred it till you get the soft fluffiness back. Now it should look just like toy stuffing from a craft shop.

Here are my latest makes, filled this way.

The Pussycat and the "Heelander" Yeti are from Small Stories by Gabrielle Reith . I got the two kits (cunningly they are printed up as tea towels) from the Renegade Craft Fair. There is an Owl on the back of the Pussycat.

These two are from one Cloth Kits kit and are designed by the fantastic Rob Ryan. The kit can be used alternatively to make a tote bag instead.


2. The next trick involved having a cushion hanging around, getting stuffed very slowly. Every little snipped off thread, end of wool and really small left over of fabric goes into the cushion. The one below has bits from several WI meetings, as well as months of home sewing, pompom making and knitting.

On the left - the cushion cover I made at primary school, which was left unstuffed for many years.

On the right is another Cloth Kits cushion I got from the Knitting and Stitching Show, designed by lovely Jane Foster. Before she was designing for big companies like Habitat and Clothkits and sold her work through Ebay, she once made me a bag especially designed to hang over the side of my wheelchair without getting caught up in the wheels. Alas, one day in New Look, unbeknown to me it got caught on a hook displaying  bras. I drove off at top wheelchair speed and ripped it apart (and upset a lot of bras).