diy { a pillow cover from the archives }

 

I have had these photos sitting in my blog photos folder for ever.  It has coincidentally been forever since I’ve blogged.  Almost three weeks.  Oh my word, where has the time gone?  Well it’s boring enough around here that I am finally pulling these photos out of the archives and making a post.  But, I will have you know, I have not been blogging because I have been doing some serious projects, so it will be my goal to photograph those and share them with you in the next couple of weeks.  Big stuff.  I’m so excited.  Now, back to the archives.

So I am not a Martha Stewart, prim and proper style seamstress. 

This pillow cover is made using a method I learned from MacGyver seamstress, Ashley Ann, which I pinned here.  Her photos taught me, hands down, the quickest method for a pillow cover.  I am married to this pillow cover making  method and I will never leave it for the rest of my life, being loyal to it and to no other for as long as we both shall live.  Seriously.

Here is  my description of the process.

Materials:

cutting mat

cutting guide

rotary cutter

standard pillow case for pillow back

fabric for pillow front

pillow form (20x20 is the same height as a standard queen pillow case which makes it simple)

iron

sewing machine and thread

Instructions:

Press your pillow case flat, and press the fabric for the pillow front.

Using the rotary cutter and your guide, cut your fabric for the front of the pillow.  Find the measurements by measuring width and height from seam to seam on the pillow form.  I don’t even bother adding seam allowances.  I use feather pillow forms from IKEA which settle over time, and they’re so easy to stuff in, the dimensions don’t have to be rocket science.  If that stresses you out the door, go ahead and add them in.  =)

Now trim off the seams and folded edge on the top, bottom and closed end of the pillow case (NOT the HEMMED open end).  For a 20x20 pillow form, the case is already the right height.  You want to just barely trim off the seams and folded edge so that we can reposition the hemmed edges to be an envelope closure for the back of the pillow cover.

You should now have separate front and back pieces from your pillow case, each with three raw edges and the original hemmed cuff edgea still intact.

 

Now we are going to use those hemmed ends of the pillow case…

 

First some simple calculations… So take your pillow form width… mine is 20 inches.  Add a couple inches for overlap… I added 2* so that = 22 inches.  Then divide in half = 11 inches.  *=My cover gapes a little – I recommend adding more like 4 inches for overlap.

Stack your case pieces with hemmed edges together and measure in from the hemmed edge, 11 inches in my case… and cut the two layers of the pillow case.

So in the above picture, I measured from the left hemmed edge, cutting the pillow case on the right edge of the guide at 11 inches.  There are two layers here, so each layer will make half the back of the pillow cover and they will slightly overlap.

Next, you simply lay your pillow front right-side up, then your pillow backs on top of that, right-side down (so it’s like the pillow cover is inside out), and pin around the edges.  Your pillow case hems will overlap in the center. 

In this picture mine are already sewn but you can see the layout…

Once it’s sewn together, turn it right-side out through the gap in the back.  Then slip your pillow form into half the pillow cover through the opening in the back like so…

Then pull the other side of the pillow cover back around the rest of the pillow like so…

And that’s it.

Here is the pillow on our bed, where it no longer lives.  Hey, I told you the photos were from the archives.  It’s in one of my wooden pub chairs in the living room now.  I got the flour sack at Farm Chicks in 2012.  My favorite part is the random “NRA” (National Rifle Assoc.) stamp on the bag and the hand pointing to where to open…

 

So what do you think?  Can you handle a simple pillow cover like this???