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asy! That’s the first thing I want you to think when you look at these flanged pillow shams. They take about an hour to put together and they can change the entire look and feel of your bedroom. Plus, with the instructions that follow, you can create smaller accessory pillow covers as well.
You don’t even have to sew in the flanged edge, (1 ½” of extra fabric that creates a flap around the entire pillow) if you don’t want to. Come on, try it, there are holidays and seasons approaching that could benefit from new pillow covers in your home!
Materials List:
Tip:
Pillow covers are a great way to update the look of your current pillows. Or purchase a couple of pillows from a garage sale or Goodwill. Often they are less expensive than pillow forms and fill a new pillow cover just as nicely!
Instructions:
1) Start by measuring the width and height of your pillow. This little accessory pillow measures 13 ½” square.
2) To figure out the cut size of your fabric, start with the width. (I did mine backwards!) Add together the width of the pillow, plus a flange of 1 ½” on both edges which equals 3”, plus 5/8” seam allowances on both edges. The total cut width is 17 ¾”.
Now figure the length of the cut piece of fabric. Think about wrapping a long rectangle around your pillow. So, to cover just the pillow, you need 13 ½” plus 13 ½”. For the flanges at the top and bottom, add 1 ½” four times, twice for the front and twice for the back, so 6” total. Each end of the fabric will require a 1” hem, requiring 2” per end, so a total of 4”. And last, add 4” for the fabric to overlap on the back. Added together, our cut length is 41”
3) Cut your fabric to size.
4) Pin the 1” hems in the short ends of the rectangle and stitch them in place.
5) Fold the pillow cover in half, overlapping the hemmed ends having 4” and right sides together. Position the overlap in the center as best as you can.
6) Then, double check the measurements of the entire pillow. The width should still be 17 3/4”, but the length or height of the pillow should now measure 1 ¼” less because there are no seams to add into this dimension. Our measures 16 ½”.
7) Once your measurements are correct, pin the two sides together and stitch.
8) Trim the seams in half, clip the corners, and turn the pillow cover right side out. At this point, you have made a plain pillow cover without the flanged edge. If your measurements were for a plain cover, you would iron and be done!
9) Iron the pillow cover, edges especially, making sure the corners are nice and square and the overlap is flat.
10) Pin along the edges to keep in the ironed crease and make sure the overlap is even and flat.
11) Stitch in the 1 ½” flange all the way around the pillow cover or sham on the right side of the fabric.
12) Insert the old pillow into the new pillow cover.
Like I said, any size works, accessory pillows or bed shams. So take a few minutes to give your home a breath of fresh air with brand new pillows!!
Shari
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sewing 
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