Video 14: Pillowcases

Hello, my name is Aimee Griffin from overallquilter.com. In today’s video I’m going to show you how to make pillowcases with hidden seams. And what I mean by that, is that you will not have any flyaway hairs or threads on your seams, on the top or on the sides. We’ll do a French seam on the sides. In this way, you can do pillow cases and donate them to your local quilt shop for the one million pillow case challenge.

A special thanks this week to Yolande, Frances, Terry and Mary Beth for their donations.

Let’s go take a look at our pillow cases.  So fabric comes 42 – 45 inches in width. So that, that’s from selvage to selvage. So we’re going to keep that at 42. I always leave my selvages on too. I don’t worry about that until later on. I’ll square everything up in one shot later on.

My sleeve, this is the sleeve part which is the top part of the pillow case, is a quarter of a yard. So 9 inches wide, by 42 inches long. And I’m just going to lay that face up, on my Ironing Board.

Your next piece is the body of the quilt which is the large piece, of the pillow case, not the quilt. And that is three quarters of a yard. And so again, 27 inches by 42 inches. And I’m gonna lay that right on top of my sleeve, again with it faced up.

My last piece, which is the accent piece, is an- eighth of a yard, so 4 ½ inches by 42 inches. And I’m going to fold that into half and press it, the long width. So that my selvages again, are all nice and even on each of the fabrics. And I’m going to lay that with the raw edge, or the raw edge of the fabrics, all lined up on top.  And again, that lays on top of the body of the quilt.  So again it’s the sleeve, the body of the quilt, and then the accent piece.

Once you have them stacked, you’re going to take the body of the quilt, and fanfold it creating a tube. And once you do that, you want to make sure all your fabrics are lined up. Nice and raw edges. Once you have it fanned, then take the sleeve and bring it ip, and pin starting from the center out. Making sure that you catch all your pieces.  Now, I’m gonna pull it down, so I can see where I’m at.  And I’m gonna take it, and so I’m pinning my sleeve, the body of the quilt, the accent piece, and my sleeve again. So that’s one, two, three, four, five pieces.  Be careful not to grab what you fanned inside. You don’t want that fold, that fan fold to be caught in your seam once you start sewing.  When I pin, I like to pin from the inside out so that the head of the pin is close to me, and away from the raw edge. The reason I do this is because I sew with my pins on, so that my fabric all stays together.

I’m going to go ahead and pin this and sew it, and we’ll be right back.

So now that I’ve gone to my machine and sewed a quarter of an inch all the way down, I’m going to undo my tube.  So, just pull from the outer edge until all your pieces come right side out. So you have your sleeve, your accent piece, and your accent piece could really be any size you want it to be. Your sleeve, your accent piece, and the body of your quilt.

And so, now I’m  just going to give it a good press, and then I will square off my edges, my selvages, get rid if my selvages. And that’s gonna make my pillow case nice and straight. Once you do that, we’re gonna show you how to do some French seams. So, I’ll be right back.

So, to make a French seam, you’re going to take your two pieces and with wrong sides together, go ahead and seam it, or sew it straight down, about a quarter of an inch. And then on the bottom as well, about a quarter of an inch. You’ll turn the pillow case inside out and the, you will stitch again 5/8^ths of an inch this time, and again, all the way down, and across. And then turn your pillow case and it will be done. So, I’m going to show you how to do that.

Take your pins, and it’s really important that you pin the intersection where your accent piece is, so that they line up. Once you sew, you’re, your seam is in.  And you may have to wiggle that a little bit, to get it nice and straight.  And don’t forget to backstitch or to tack at the beginning of your seam, because that’s a stress point. And so, since you’re gonna be putting the pillow case in and out, you’ll be able to tear that seam, so always make sure that you tack that. I like to do pillowcases for birthday parties. You an put the birthday gifts inside the pillowcase and pillowcases nowadays, as an inexpensive are less expensive than buying bags, and tissue, and birthday cards and all that good stuff. So I’ll make this to go with my beautiful quilt on my backdrop, when I did the intro.

So, I’m going to go to my sewing machine, and stitch a quarter of an inch down and across, and I’ll be right back.

So I have stitched it, and I have turned my pillow case inside out with the outside or with the inside faced out now, and  I’m going to go back to the sewing machine, and stitch going down the same length that I stitched before, out down this way and down the bottom of the pillow case. I do want to show you a trick I learnt a long time ago on the back tacking your seams.  So let’s follow me to the sewing machine.

I’ve changed my quilting foot from a ¼ inch foot to a regular foot so that I can catch a bigger seam.  And I’m going to line that up with either my 5/8^th or my ½ inch. I’ve got a pretty skinny ¼. So I’m going to go with the ½ inch seam guide here.  And I’m gonna start with the pillow case and, a little bit further so that I can go backwards first, and then go forward. This way it will tack it, but it won’t have such a big seam that the thread’s gonna look bad. So, I’m gonna go back, and then I’m gonna go forward. And keep that all the way until you come across, down and across. When you get to the bottom, stop about a ½ inch to 5/8 of an inch, you put your needle down and pivot, your fabric.  We only have to do the side and the bottom because we have a fold on this side. Once you have sewn side and bottom, cut your threads, turn your pillow case inside out again. Now I always try and grab the corners of my pillowcase, so that I have a nice little area there, a little point there. Do the same thing with the other side. If I can find it. And you now have a cute pillowcase to go with your quilt.

And there you go.