No-Sew Tea Towel Pillow

While my old sewing machine was off for a service and repair, I was handicapped. Which in turn, inspired me to think of how to make a pillow without using a sewing machine. Here it is, a No-Sew Tea Towel Pillow was created especially for you, both sewer and non-sewer. Now, everyone can make a pillow cover with just some simple tools and materials.

There could be some other techniques for no sew pillow, have been seeing some using fusible web to “glue” the edges, but I wonder if it is only for no wash pillow. Here, I am using “lace and fasten” method, by lacing through eyelets at the edges, draw the edges together and fasten them to form a pillow cover. When you are tired with the pillow, you can always take out the ribbon lacing and return the tea towel back to its original flat form.

This is a cheap and quick no-sew tea towel pillow, just need a tea towel, some single-piece eyelets and it’s installation tool, ribbons to fasten, plus other supporting tools, you can make the no-sew pillow that has ribbon-lace and bows at the sides.

Hope you like it. Well, obviously my sister’s puppy loves it a lot 🙂

No Sew Tea Towel Pillow

Make: 1

Materials:
1. Tea Towel – 20″ x 28″ size
2. Rectangle Throw Pillow Insert – 20″ x 12″
3. Eyelets -5/32″ [3.97mm],28 pcs [Dritz Silver tone Eyelets 5/32″ (3.97mm) 100 pk refill]
4. Ribbon, rope, lace or anything you want to use to fasten the pillow.

Tools:
1. Eyelet tool or eyelet plier [Dritz- 104 Eyelet Tool or Dritz- Pliers Kit]
2. Hammer [if you are using eyelet too instead of plier]
3. Erasable fabric marker
4. Awl
5. Rod that is about 5mm in diameter, I used 5mm knitting needle
6. Tacky glue [Aleene’s Original “Tacky” Glue-4 Ounce]
7. Toothpick
8. Adhesive tape (optional)

Finished Dimension: approx. 20″ (W) x 12″ (H)

Remark: don’t use scissors to cut hole for single-piece eyelet installation, the fabric will get weaken by the broken threads and start fraying, thus the hole will become bigger and the eyelet won’t stay well there.

5/32″ [3.97mm] eyelets with the correct eyelet tool or plier. You will need 28 eyelets but spare more in case you need to redo the installation.
The tea towel is around 20″ x 28″. If you can’t find the exact size, it is ok to get a tea towel that is slightly bigger by 1 or 2 inches. Smaller tea towel is not recommended unless you use smaller pillow insert.

Prepare and get ready for the rest of the materials and tools.

Mark 14 eyelet positions on each long side of the tea towel with an erasable fabric marker.
If you are using 28″ length tea towel, mark 1″ from the short length edges, then 2″ between eyelets.
If you are using different length which is slightly bigger, say L, then deduct 2 x A, where A = 1″, then divide the balance with 13, you will get more than 2″. By mathematics formula, it is:
B = (L – 2A)/13

Poke through the towel with a sharp awl at the marking, without breaking the fabric threads.

Enlarge the hole with a 5mm rod, I used 5mm knitting needle.

No thread is broken, they were pushed to the side.
Even if it is broken a little, no worry, it can be rescued by placing a small drop of glue to glue it back to the tea towel while stopping it from going further.

Put some tacky glue at the back of the eyelet, with a toothpick.

Carefully insert the eyelet stud through the hole, insert the eyelet from the right side.
Be careful the groves at the stud edge, they are thread catcher. Use the awl to free the caught threads if necessary.
Repeat the process to put in all eyelets.

Crimp the eyelet with the eyelet installation tool or the eyelet plier.

The crimped eyelet at the back.

The crimped eyelet at the front.

Complete all 14 eyelets at each side, 28 eyelets in total.

Fold the tea towel with 2 eyelets overlapping at the end edges. Align the eyelets in all layers.
Tape the ribbon-end with adhesive tape so that it can go through the eyelets easily.

Insert the ribbon into the top eyelet and out from the bottom eyelet, start from the first eyelet of the tea towel (refer photo) which is now on the overlapping fold.
Repeat the lacing through the eyelets, always goes in from the top and come out from the bottom. From center to bottom, then go up to top then come back to the center.

Tie the ribbon at the center to make a bow.

Repeat the same to the other side.

Put the pillow insert into the no-sew tea towel pillowcase.
~~ DONE ~~