On the subject of pillows - the Grandad pillow

The Grandad Pillow.

I wanted to share this pillow from Espen's room with you. When it was time to travel back from Norway after my dad passed away, I grabbed a shirt from his closet as a little something to remember him by. I don't particularly remember him wearing this shirt, but I do remember my dad wearing plaid shirts for all of of my life. This one was soft and the fabric had pilled, which means that it got a lot of use. And it smelled like my dad and like home.

Once we got back, I started thinking about what I wanted to do with the shirt. I liked the idea of giving it a new life, so looked into shirts refashioned into something else. Finally, I found this pillow made from a shirt and liked the idea, only the tutorial was in Finnish! But it gave me a clear enough idea of what I wanted: I especially liked how the buttons and pillow were left intact, so it still looked like a shirt, even though it was a pillow.

At this point I enlisted the help of my kind mother-in-law, who is a wonderful seamstress. I knew that while I could probably made a pillow, she would make the right pillow. I love how she left the collar, buttons and sleeves on, so it still looks like a shirt. Espen loves that it has a pocket for tucking secrets inside.

I knew right away that it was going to be a pillow for Espen's room. He loved his Grandad so much, but I can tell that his memories of him are already starting to fade. So it's nice that he has a physical reminder of a Grandad that loved him and was such a big part of his early life. He sleeps with it in his bed most nights - although I suspect that has more to do with the nest-building phase he's in right now than feeling close to his Grandad. I prop the pillow behind my back when we read stories at bedtime, and I like to feel that my dad (or at least one of his possessions) is such an easy part of our day-to-day life. I think he would like that too.