Shag pillow? Yes please.

I saw this on pinterest the other day and had to try it. It's official. I'm. in. love.
The tutorial I used called for jersey material from the fabric store. But since the hubs has kind of put the kibosh on spending money on crafty projects (especially since I'm really good at almost finishing them) and I'm kind of on a reuse-old-t-shirts streak, I used some old t-shirts instead. It took me three t-shirts to get enough strips. And I had to get a little creative with my cutting....
To make this pillow, you'll need about 285 1.5"x4" rectangles. You'll also need two 11"x15" pieces of fabric that coordinate to your shag fabric. I used some gray flannel that I had on hand.

On one of the 11"x15" pieces, draw lines every 3/4". You should get 19 lines. If, scratch that, when I make this pillow again, I'll draw a line about 3/4" - 1" from the top and bottom so I know where to start my sewing.

Then comes the fun part! Sewing! This pillow is VERY forgiving, so dive right in. You'll use 14-15 rectangles for each line. Just grab a rectangle, scrunch it up in the middle and sew it on. Easy peesy. Just be careful not to get your shag caught in your next line, as illustrated below. I only did that so you'd know what not to do.....and I'm having a love affair with my seam ripper.

Continue sewing on the rectangles until all of your lines are filled.

Then put the shagged (haha) piece shag-side down on top of the right side of the plain piece of fabric and sew the edges, leaving a hole to stuff it. (How many innuendos are in that sentence?) This took a little bit of time and patience and checking to make sure the shag wasn't getting in the seam.

Then turn it right-side out, stuff with fiber fill and hand sew the hole closed. (I think I might use a pillow form next time for a smoother looking finished product.) Voila! You have successfully made a fantastic shag pillow!

I'm kind of sickly obsessed with this pillow. I'm trying to decide how many shag pillows a girl can have before people start to question her sanity....