How to Make Pillow Covers

We were in Chicago this past weekend and stayed with my BFF and MOH (same person), Lauren and her fiance Ryan. Lauren has great taste and is super creative and therefore her apartment is decorated fabulously! I compared and mentally redecorated our apartment and it's cluttered mess with bare non-painted walls all weekend. We recently moved so I guess I can cut us some slack. But let's be honest we still have several boxes and clothes with no place to go scattered everywhere. Besides good organization I tried to think of ways to spruce up our place. Paint? Artwork? How about a few photos of us?


So I thought I would start in the guest room slash computer and sewing room. My mom is coming to stay this weekend so that's a good place to start. I don't want to do too much since we registered for some bedding for that room and I can just wait a few months. I decided that some extra pillows on the bed would help as well as a new duvet cover. The fabric store had pillows on sale and I bought a little fabric and off I went!


Here's a little tutorial: 


Tools you will need
- Fabric 
- Pillow forms or stuffing
- Drinking Glass, pencil
- A sewing machine, iron, ironing surface, pins, scissors and thread 




Step One: 
Cut your fabric into three pieces. For the front of the pillow, you will need one square about an inch more than your pillow. For example my pillows are 18x18 so I cut out 19x19 squares. For the back, you will need two rectangles,19x11.5" each. Again an inch more on the long edge and the short edge are half your square piece plus 2.5". Does that make sense? Hope so!

Step Two: To ease sewing and turning, trace a glass with a pencil or marking tool to round the corners of the pillow cover slightly. Mark all four corners of the square piece of fabric and two corners on one long edge for each rectangle. Cut along the pencil lines. 

Step Three: Since the straight edges of the rectangles will be exposed, You will want to hem them.  Fold about 1/4" - 3/8" of the edge over twice to completely encase the raw edge and stitch it down with a straight stitch. Sorry I didn't get a picture of this. 

Step Four: Pin the entire pillow cover together in preparation for sewing. Place the large square down and pin the rectangles overlapping. 

Step Five: Sew pillow together with a 5/8" seam allowance. Sorry again no pics. 

Step Six: Almost done! Turn pillowcase inside out and press. Stuff pillow and you're DONE! 

* Note: I haven't put the new duvet on, so disregard the wrinkled sheets and bed. 

Steps I left out: 

Adding Trim- You could easily add a decorative trim to the edges prior to sewing together.

Finishing edges- Since I still do not own a Serger sewing machine, I just used pinking shears to cut the raw edges before I turned it inside out. 

I feel like I should high five myself for this project. I can't believe it took me so long to realize how EASY it is to make pillow covers! I am so happy with myself I want to make more for the living room and bedroom. High Five Ashley! (that's me clapping my hands together) ha!