I wish I could say I haven’t posted in a while because I came into a windfall of some sort and am so busy spending all of my money that I can’t be bothered to think about being frugal. Unfortunately, there is a much less exciting reason…back pain. It is just brutal! I am not even sure what caused it, but I suspect it may have to do do with my old desk being too low and my posture being bad as a result. At first I tried to power through, sticking with my yoga practice, hoping it would just get better. But then the pain started interfering with my practice and I began having decreased freedom of movement. So off to the doctor I went…then the chiropractor…then to an orthopedist, and now I am in physical therapy. And I am seeing progress! It will still be a while until I am back to my old self, but I am finally feeling something I can call better. Anyway, my physical therapist recommended that I use a lumbar support pillow when sitting in a chair for any significant amount of time. She showed me one that I could buy for about $15, but also said I could just roll up my sweatshirt, etc. to get the same result. I thought of my yoga bolster and figured I could have the convenience of a real pillow AND the free-ness of rolling up a sweatshirt by repurposing some things I had been intending to donate or throw away.
As I have mentioned, I am no seamstress, but I do posses some basic sewing items, which are mainly used for emergency mending. In addition to the thread, scissors, and needle, I scrounged up the rest of the drawstring from the yoga bolster, some unflattering cotton yoga tights that for whatever reason I have not yet donated, and some thick but fraying hand towels.
In order to get the width I needed, the towels needed to be folded in by a third, so I folded them both that way and stacked them so that the halves came together to form a third layer of towel.
Then I rolled it up tightly and neatly. The thickness was perfect!
I cut an end of the pants off, and since they are so stretchy, I really didn’t need the length to be any more than that of the towel roll. I snipped a little hole in the hem and threaded in my drawstring.
Using a (barely serviceable) whip stitch, I sewed the other end closed. I doubled back and tied it off to make it secure. Not pretty, but secure.
I stretched the case around the roll of towels, smoothing it out as needed, then cinched and tied the drawstring to complete the pillow.
This thing works perfectly! It gives me the support I need at the dinner table, on the couch, in the car, anywhere. I am using a kneeling chair at my desk, so it doesn’t help me here, but would be perfect for an ordinary office chair as well. And I appreciate not having to find a sweatshirt to roll up whenever I sit in a chair that necessitates using something like this. Finally, I am happy to find a new life for my favorite towels that are finally too frayed to keep using in the bathroom!
