Friday, January 15, 2010

No Exposed Seams Pillowcase Tutorial

You all need to know that I went to the gym every day so far. I am excited to weigh in on Monday at WW. After the gym last night PTM and I went back to her house and we did a photo tutorial on how to make a pillowcase with no exposed seams. I took a lot of pictures so here goes and I hope it all makes sense!

The sizes of fabric I am using are for a standard sized pillow. You will use a 36" piece for the body if you are making king size pc. Also VERY IMPORTANT, make certain you back stitch to secure your stitching as you are making these. You wouldn't want your pc to pull apart. We washed and pressed all the fabric before beginning. PTM told me I *had* to do this and for me this was the most tedious part of the whole thing! I NEVER wash my fabric first. Variable shrinkage can cause a real problem with these, so ...just DO IT!

First you will need at least 2 different fabrics (3 if you make the accent). We used 3 and did the accent. You will cut the body of the pc at 27" X WOF (width of fabric). The cuff will be cut
9" X WOF. You can cut your accent piece anything from ~ 1 1/4" - 2" depending how wide you would like your accent to be. We cut ours at 1 1/4" to begin. after you have them cut you will lay them on top of each other (folded in half) to cut off the salvages on all the fabric. You do this at the same time so the widths are all the same! Clever, eh? Pauline (PTM) told me about that! We had already cut ours so I used a different one to show you how we did that.

Take the accent and fold it in half, wrong sides together, just like you do binding and press. Open your cuff and lay your accent piece on top of the right of the cuff. matching raw edges, fold facing you. (If you are not using a accent piece, skip this step!)

1-Layer cut fabrics2-Fold accent lay on Ws of cuff, raw edges matching
Then you will take your body of the PC and line up the raw edge to the cuff/accent piece with the right side down. Next you pin all the layers together across the top.
3-Lay bocy on cuff rst4-Pin all three layers
PTM is big on pinning. It helps everything stay in place.
5-Pin all across top
Now you bring the bottom of the pc up near the top where you just pinned. Not all the way though and then you roll the rest until you are about half way or a little more up the cuff, like in the photo on the right
6-bring up bottom and roll7-Until you see the cuff
Then you bring the raw edge of your cuff up over your roll and match it to the pinned top. You will then make sure all the edges are even and pin them all together. We just moved the pins we had already pinned with from the underneath area and pinned all the layers together.
8-Bring cuff up to pinned edge9-Pin to top(replacing pins)
It should look like this photo.
10-It should look like this
You will then take your sausage to the sewing machine and sew a 1/4" seam along the pinned edge. We used a walking foot to keep all the layers feeding evenly. This was especially important when I did a flannel one.
11-Sew along pinned edge
This part is kinda fun. You will pull the inside out of the tube. It is like magic, you'll see!

12-Pull to turn out13-Keep pulling
Here you see the front and the back of the cuff area, no raw edges on the front or the back!
14-It should look like this on the front15-And this on the back
Take the pc to your iron and give it a good press from the back at the seam line, turn it over and do the same from the front side and then press the crease into the cuff where it is folded along the edge. We did it this way so there didn't end up being any unwanted creases pressed into the cuff.
16-Press from back17-Press from front
You will need to take your pc and fold it with the wrong sides together (wst), pin and sew a 1/4" seam along the long edge (side) of the pc. I like to begin sewing at the cuff end so I can make sure my cuff seam matches. I would not like it if they didn't match when I was finished!!
18-Fold so wrong sides are together19-Sew QI seam beginning at cuff end
After you are finished sewing this seam you may see some stray threads, use your rotary cutter and ruler to trim them. If you don't you may catch them in the next part and will see them on the finished edge of your pc. If you don't have any, you don't have to trim.
20-Trim any threads off edge21-ATrim all loose threads along edge
You will then fold your pc right sides together (rst) and pin and sew a 1/2" seam down the side you just did the quarter inch seam. Again, I like to begin at the cuff end and sew down. It is kind of bulky (especially when you use flannel ) where the cuff/accent seams meet. You may have to push/pull a little to get over the "hump"of seams. You are basically making a "French seam" and enclosing your quarter inch seam inside of it.
22-Fold rst (enclosing seam)23-Sew half inch seam down the side
This is what your side seam will look like on the wrong side.
24-Seam should look like ths25-No raw exposed edge
You will now do a repeat of this process with the bottom of the pc. Fold the pc WST and sew a 1/4" seam, trim if there are loose threads, turn and press. At this point you will have RST and sew a 1/2" seam over the quarter inch seam you just sewed. Where the side enclosed seam and the where you will now sew meet you get this weird little fold. I tried to show you how this looks in the photo on the right. Just play with it a little bit and make it play nice because you will just be sewing right over it.
27-Turn and put rst28-It will look like this at the sewn corner
In these pics you can see that PTM started sewing right at that place rather than at the other end. She sewed with the folded area on the bottom.
29-Sew half inch seam beginning from corner where seams meet30-Sew half inch seam
Here you can see what it looks like once sewn, from the wrong side.
31-It should look like this
Now comes the TA_DA moment. Are you ready?? Turn your pc right side out...

32-Turn pc right side out
And...TA-DA!!! You have a beautiful new pillowcase you made all by yourself!! Who would want store bought when these are so darned easy!!
34-TA-DA Finished!
I know you want to know this. The accent is loose, not sewn down, see, that's my own hand showing you that!
33-Accent is loose

I hope this has been helpful! (Or at least interesting!!) If you have any questions, please email me and I will do my best to help you. I think you should be able to make these in about 20 minutes, once you make one. There are several places taking pc donations right now too. So make them as gifts, make them to donate, make them for yourself, whatever. I am using up some fabric I bought that I am no longer in love with and will probably donate some and give some to friends.

Please let me know if you make some and if this was a useful tutorial! I have a few photos from PTM's that I will share with you tomorrow. Have fun making pillowcases now!!

14 comments:

Allie said...

Very cool Pam! You did a good job on the tutorial. And the pillowcases!
Congrats on making it every day!

Sherrill said...

I saw a tutorial on youtube by searching 'sausage pillowcase' and tried it! Her measurements are slightly different but same method. I made a couple of 'cases and LOVED it!! I've cut a ton more so that my church quilt group can make up a bunch. So AWESOME to have the finished edges with only a little extra sewing!

Shari said...

This is a great tutorial! Very clear instructions. I first tried this with only written instructions and it took me ages before I would try it because I just couldn't visualise all the folding - I thought about it for weeks before it popped in to my head. Now I have your great tutorial to refer to and point other people to... Thanks!

Hus - Shari

CJ said...

Thanks for the tutorial. I think I need to go over it when it is NOT almost 2 a.m. though. I can't wait to make some though.

Crispy said...

Hooray for making it to the gym everyday!!

Wonderful tutorial you two. I'm passing a link on to the ladies in my sewing group. Their guild is getting involved in donating PC's.

Crispy

Mary-Kay said...

Wow! The gym every day. Good for you. The pc tutorial is great. I can never get that french type seam thing down and now I'll have to try it out again. Thanks for all the photos. I'm sure it will help many of us..

Mary on Lake Pulaski said...

Awesome tutorial!! This is the same pillowcase I make and I love it!!

G'G'ma said...

Thanks for the tutorial. I've been meaning to make some cases and this is the push I needed.

Good luck at the gym!!

Pat said...

Thank you for the excellent pictures and instructions. I have been quilting since 1982 & for the life of me could not decifer the pictures & instructions that came with a little pillowcase kit I bought up in Alaska. I kept wondering if I had totally lost it! But with your much clearer images, etc. everything clicked into place. I Googled No Exposed Seams pillowcase, and you were at the top of the list!

Hoofmaiden said...

Great tut

Creations by Celeste said...

Nice job on the photos and all.

Unknown said...

Think of making these for sick children at the University Hospitals in your area.

William's Bedding Blogs said...

Thanks for the great tutorial, I have a body pillow that needs a new look and this is perfect.

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William's Bedding Blogs said...

Awesome tutorial.Thank you for the excellent pictures and instructions.

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