Wednesday, August 4

Pillow Cover Tutorial

These are the pillows I made for my living room before I got the new curtains:


And I still completely love them, but they don't match the colors of the new curtains. Don't worry, they will take center stage in the office/guest room I'm working on. But the living room is going to need something new. I have made several pillows, but I always have two problems with them. 1) Fiber fill is more expensive than I think it should be, and although it's usually cheaper than buying pillows, it still makes me cringe just a little. 2) They always come out lumpy! Which probably means there is some secret to pillow stuffing that I don't know about, so if you have any tips I'd be happy to hear them! :) Fortunately this time around I found a way to avoid both of those problems with these:

These pillows were from the bedding set we got for our wedding. When I changed our bedding, I was planning to get rid of these but I'm glad I never got around to it! I saved some money by using these as pillow forms and just making covers for them, and got the fabric on sale for even more saving. I also don't think they will get lumpy, especially if they haven't by now! Ready for the finished product?

 

Ta-da! It was so easy to do and I think they turned out really well. 
Want to make your own money-saving pillow covers? Here's how:

1) Start by figuring out the size of fabric you need & cut it out. This is how I figured it: the width is equal to the width of the pillow + 1" for seams. The length is equal to double the width of the pillow + 2" for seams + 3" for over lap. So this is how it worked out for my square pillow it was 17 x 17" so my total width was 17 + 2 (for seams) = 19" total, and my length was 34 (17 doubled) + 2" (for seams) + 3" (overlap) = 39" total. So the fabric I cut was 19 x 39" Hopefully that makes sense.
That was the hard part. :)

 2) Hem one of the shorter sides by folding the edges under 1/2", then 1/2" again and sewing along the fold (shown above). Repeat with the other short end.


 3) Lay your fabric right side up, then fold the short ends in toward the middle (shown above) until they overlap about 3" and the overall length is down to the actual size of your pillow (17" for me).


4) Sew down the two unfinished side with a 1/2" seam allowance (shown above as the right & left sides).


5) And that's it! Just turn you cover right side out. The back will open up to fit your pillow, and the overlap will keep your pillow from peeking out.


And here it is stuffed with a pillow.


And this fuzzy picture shows the red pillow hiding inside.
And there you have it. A cheap & easy way to change up your pillows.


Oh yeah, that's much better.

3 comments:

Subscribe