How to make a pillow case--tutorial

My 3 year old loves pillow cases.  When she was a baby she never got attached to a blanket or a bear or anything which wasn't a big deal most of the time, but certainly would have been nice when nothing I did comforted her.  When she was 16 months old we moved her from the crib to a toddler bed (early I know, but we had another baby when she was 17 months old and we needed the crib).  Almost instantly I noticed that as soon as we laid her down she would slide her little hand inside the pillow case and rub it against her cheek.  Within about a week she started taking the pillow case off the pillow to snuggle with it while she slept.  It took me about 2 months to convince her to leave the case on her pillow and to snuggle with another one.  From that time on, pillow cases are her comfort.  She drags them all around the house.  The only problem is that I have no pillow cases in my linen closet because she has them in her bed and several other places in the house.  Whenever I go and collect them to put in the wash and put away she has a meltdown because I am taking her security away.

I decided that if she got some special pillow cases for Christmas that were just for her, then she might (please, please, please) let me have all of the others back.  So I set to work.  They turned out great and I thought you might want to know how to make them.  I got the fabric from the $1.50 per yard bin at Walmart.  I bought 2 yards and it made 2 pillow cases.  And, I'm happy to report that she loves them and has let me have most of the other pillow cases back.  :)

1.  Find a pillow case you already have and flip it inside out.

2.  Take your fabric (cute isn't it) and fold it inside out (so that the pattern sides are facing each other.)  Then lay your pillow case on top of it.  Make sure to leave an extra 4-5 inches at the top for the seam.

3.  Cut your fabric using the pillow case as a guide.  Don't forget to leave 1/2 an inch for your seams.

4.  Next you need to sew the top.  Start by folding an inch down and ironing it.  Once you have done that, fold 3-4 inches down (depending on how much you left when you cut it) and iron it again.  Once you have done that, you need to sew it.  I sewed it about 1/4 of an inch from the fold.

5.  Now, if you just want a plain pillow case, fold it so that right sides are facing each other and sew down the sides and across the bottom.  Viola!  You have a pillow case.  However, if you want to make it a little more fancy, then do not sew down the sides and across the bottom and keep reading.

6.  Decide what you want for a trim.  I thought trimming it with some ribbon would look nice.  I only had light pink and a lightish purple.  I think dark pink would have been much better, but I didn't have any (don't worry, I have taken care of that problem...whew!).

I thought purple looked better, so I chose purple.  Then I had a great idea.  Wouldn't a stripe of white look really good down the center of the purple?  Of course it would!

I tried to sew the white ribbon to the purple ribbon by just laying one on top of the other and sewing down the middle.  Guess what?  It didn't work.  The white ribbon was all over the place.  So I had to figure out a better way to do it.

7.  The solution?  Iron-on seam tape.  It is beautiful stuff and I use it regularly.  I used lite because that is what I had on hand, but you have to go back and sew it down to make sure it doens't come undone in the wash.  They make a heavy duty kind that is washable, which would have worked wonderfully for this project, but I didn't have any.

My white ribbon was 3/8 in. wide and the Heat and Bond is 5/8 in wide, so I just cut the Heat and Bond down the middle length wise and it fit perfectly onto my ribbon.

8.  All you do is lay it on the ribbon with the paper side facing up and iron it on (follow the directions on the package).  Once it is ironed on, peel the paper backing off and lay it onto the other ribbon and iron them together.

9.  At this point, you can just lay the ribbon onto the pillow case and sew right down the middle of the white ribbon.  It will sew the white ribbon to the purple ribbon and sew them both to the pillow case.

I am kind of a perfectionist, so I didn't do it that way.  Instead I sewed down the very edge of each side of the white ribbon (so you couldn't see any stitches) and then I used more Heat and Bond and "glued" the purple ribbon to the pillow case.  Then I sewed down the very edge of both sides of the purple ribbon.  Totally overkill, but it looks the way I wanted it to, so I am happy with it.

10. Once you have your ribbon on, all you have to do is sew down the sides and across the bottom.  Flip it right side out and you are done!

Happy sewing!!