Upcycled T-shirt Balloon Dog

I'm currently decluttering and working my way through my fabric and clothes to be upcycled stash.

Last week I opened a box of t-shirts I'd kept and made a simple t-shirt quilt for my girls. 

You can find more pictures and a tutorial to make your own t-shirt quilt here.

Although this was a great way to use up the front pictures and logos from all those t-shirts. There are still the t-shirt backs and scraps left over. Really so far I've used up less than half of the t-shirts from my stash in term of volume of fabric used and left over.

First I played around a little and made a mini t-shirt quilt, using the back of one of the t-shirts and smaller squares cut from the scraps of others.

Whilst this was nice and cute, and my younger daughter will happily claim it for her teddies, I'm not sure that making more of these is the answer to using up those last scraps.

Another thing I found on Pinterest and have been wanting to try making for a while is this t-shirt balloon dog.

The tutorial, from Little Inspiration is nice and clear and can be found here.

I cut two strips from the back of one of the left over t-shirts and sewed them together to make a tube long enough to try one.

 I used old stuffing from squished pillows that when pulled and tugged apart comes up nice and fluffy again for a second use!

The dog is made from stuffing and stitching your t-shirt tube in sections, twisting and stitching the sections together as you go, just as a balloon animal is twisted together!

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out!

I know my daughters are going to love this little doggie! It was fun to make and has inspired me with more possibilities yet!

Do come back again to see what I do with the remaining t-shirt scraps...