I LOVE holidays. I love to decorate for holidays and change things up around the house.
I especially love to bring some holiday cheer into our home.
Holidays are just plain fun and I love the joy that is felt in our home. In my opinion, Life is to be enjoyed and celebrated, so in our house we have a blast with the holidays and celebrate and decorate for as many holidays as we can.
It’s just fun to have something special to look forward to among all the craziness and routines that life brings.
One of the ways that I have found to bring holiday cheer into our decor is by changing out our couch pillow covers.
It’s a super cheap, fast and easy way to make a huge impact. (You had me at cheap and easy DIY.)
Today I am going to show you how to make RIDICULOUSLY easy, unbelievably fast, pillow covers.
If you can “kind of” sew a straight line then you can definitely make these pillow covers. And by sew a straight line I mean, matching your fabric up to the lines that are given on your sewing machine.
I even look up to respond to my kids when they talk to me and when I look back down I have started to veer off the straight path…. eh, it’s no big deal, there is plenty of room for error on these pillows, that’s why they are so great.
So without further ado…..
I present how to make a pillow cover in less than 5 minutes.
So I have made about a million and one 30 (give or take a few) of these pillow cases and so I just use my first case as a pattern.
If you are using a pillow that already has a case on it then you can take the case off and use it as a template.
But if you don’t have a template this first time around you will want to measure out your fabric to fit the length and width of your pillow.
Most of my pillow forms are 15 x 15 so that’s the size I go with.
You will want to add an 1.5 inches to the size of your pillow for the height cuts, but not the width cuts.
When I buy my fabric for the pillow cases, I just have it cut in half a yard cuts because the length of the bold is usually the perfect amount for the width of my 15 x 15 pillows.
If you are doing more than one pillow out of the same fabric then just cut your fabric down to a half a yard when you get home.
Find all the pretty colors of fabric to match your holiday, room, special occasion or whatever it is you are making your fabulous pillow cases for.
In my case I am doing Valentines pillows so I got all the cute lovey dovey girlie fabric.
Duck Cloth usually holds its form the best so if I can find patterns I like I try to buy the fabric in the duck cloth, but usually for holidays I can’t find much in this type of fabric.
I only have one for valentines day (the pink, white and blue one).
Y0u will want to lay your fabric face up (with the pattern facing you).
I HATE ironing. With a passion.
I don’t do it unless I absolutely have too and by that I mean someone has a gun to my head or I am in a competition (Are there ironing competitions?)
Once the pillow is put into the case you will not even be able to tell it’s not ironed…. but if you must iron, now would be the time.
Now you will lay your pillow on the fabric. I have my other case on there because its easier.
Once you have made your first case you will want to use it as a template.
It’s just going to be a bit more funky with a pillow…. or you can measure.
I hate taking the time to measure because then I can’t knock out 7 pillows in 35-40 minutes.
If you want to measure you would find the center of the fabric and measure a 15 x 16.5 area (if your pillow is 15 x15).
Then you take one side and fold it over the pillow, pillow case, or till it meets the edge of your 15 x 16.5 space, which ever it is you are using as your guide.
Take the edge of the piece you just folded over and fold it back over to where you can see the front side of your fabric on top of the back side.
This will be about 1.5 inches, its different for different size bolts of fabric.
This is the exact size of the piece I had cut, so just use your judgement on how much to fold in.
The bigger the folded in piece the less chance you have of your pillow showing through the opening in the back.
Take the other side of your fabric and fold it over to meet the edge of your template space again.
Now you are going to do the same thing you did before and fold the edge over.
This time you are going to want to make sure that your edges meet up. Your two folded over pieces should be on top of each other.
Make sure that you pin the double fold areas well so that this area doesn’t get bunched up when you are sewing.
I also stick one or two pins on either side of the center folds just to hold everything in place.
If you are using your pillow as a template you will want to take a white crayon or pencil and mark on your fabric where your pin needs to go.
Pull your pillow out and pin the ends.
You can trim the excess now or wait till after you sew the pillow. Sometimes I have excess fabric and sometimes I do not.
I am making something with the extra strips so I wanted a bit of left over fabric.
If you are just using your measurements you will want to measure the length of your pillow plus 1.5 inches from top to bottom and then put in your pins.
If you are using a pillow case as a template then pin right along the edges and pull your case out from the middle opening BEFORE sewing.
Now comes the fun part…. the sewing of the semi straight line.
Just line your fabric up with the given lines on your machine (it took me years to figure out that that’s what those lines are for).
I usually do 1/4-1/2 of extra fabric just to be safe.
Sew both ends with your “straight line”, I use a double stitch just to make it sturdier.
I have also used my serger stitch as well, either one works great, just make sure your stitch is strong.
Turn your pillow case right side out by pulling it out through the middle opening and then stick your pillow inside.
Make sure that you work each corner into place, I usually grab the top corners after I have the pillow in there good and hit in on my leg a few times to get everything settled into place.
Because you made those handy-dandy double folds you won’t have any raw edges that need to be sewn up.
Your pillow should fit nicely inside the case and you should not have any puckering or gaps, YIPPIE, minimal sewing and a clean look.
Then you can sit back and admire your work…. or go make a few more cases.
After you do the first you can make lots more using the first case as a template.
I have about an hour and fifteen minutes between picking one son up from school and being ready to get another son off the bus so I don’t have a huge window to get much done.
I love that these pillow cases are so fast, I can literally get out my machine, get it set up, re-thread a bobbin and knock out 7 pillow cases, and then put my machine back away in that short window.
Who doesn’t love quick, easy, and minimal sewing projects?
This time I even did two smaller pillows, without a template.
I know have cases for Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Valentines day… I’m excited to do some Easter ones too.
And now that you know how to make a pillow cover you can make as many as you want for all the holidays you want to decorate for as well.
You can also make them as gifts for other people.
I have a few covers I am going to add some embellishments too also, but I usually don’t get to that till after the holiday…. I better work on that.
Here is a sneak peak at my upcoming post about out my other Valentines day decor.
Linking up at Think and Make Thursday
