Project: Easy Pillowcase

Addie has been telling us that she wants a pillow…and what Addie wants, she gets (as long as its something I can make!) She was smart and told us while we were at the fabric store so it was easy to get everything we needed.  We let her pick her own fabric that she wanted to sleep on and it wasn’t a big surprise when she bypassed the tropical prints for the character aisle!

Addie's chose her buddies Dora and Ariel for her pillowcases

What you’ll need:

• pillow
• enough fabric to wrap around the width of the pillow with a few inches extra on the length. I started with half a yard of each print
• thread, needle, thimble
• magnetic snap (I only do this because I made the cases for Addie and I didn’t want the pillow sliding out)

First off, measure the width of the pillow, from seam to seam.  Cut your fabric to that length +1″ (plus one inch) this leaves half inch seam allowance.  Don’t worry about the length of the fabric, leave it LONG (I like an additional 7 inches on the length of the pillow) and you can roll it down to the correct length later.

use a flexible measuring tape to get the correct measurments

Sew the side seams from top to bottom with the 1/2″ seam allowance, right sides together.  Once the side seams are done, keeping the right sides together, start folding the top in a french hem technique to finish the edge.  For a child’s pillow like Addie’s I each fold was about 2″. For a bigger pillowcase make the folds longer, closer to 4″ or 5″.

start folding the hem. fold a couple of inches, press, and repeat the fold

keep folding until it JUST closes at the end of the pillow

Once you have the length that suits you, top stitch the folded hem.  Add any decorative touches that you want on your pillowcase now because otherwise you’re done, easy as that!  I added hidden magnetic snaps into the fold of Addie’s pillowcases because I didn’t want any extra fabric flapping around or the pillow sliding out of the case.  I also added a purple ribbon to the hem of the Little Mermaid pillow.  I could say that it was just for decorative appeal but it was to cover the snap holes after I put them on the wrong side of the fold. Oops. A stitched on grosgrain ribbon hid those holes and added a little more color!

The finished product.

Addie pretending to sleep (and snore) on her new pillowcase

Have fun, if you’re making this for a child let them in on it! Let them decide who, or what, will be on their pillowcase and it will be even MORE special.

Have fun, let me know how you do!