Making Pillowcases!

This month my 12 Months of Christmas post with AccuQuilt is all about making a personalized pillowcase. I’ve made a couple of beautiful pillowcases using some vintage Kaffe Fasset fabric, and I hope the recipient will love them. (Shhh. Don’t tell her – it’s for my Mom!).

You can get all of the info over on the AccuQuilt blog, and there is a video tutorial on my YouTube channel.

While I was looking at my stash, this beer fabric jumped out at me. Next month is my son’s birthday, and I decided that this would make perfect pillowcases for his bachelor pad. I don’t think he would appreciate the personalization aspect, so I skipped that. This directional print gave me a challenge, though. If I cut it according to the tutorial directions, the beers will be sideways. Obviously, that isn’t acceptable. So, here are some additional instructions for making a pillowcase out of directional fabric.

My son uses a queen sized pillow, which is a little longer than a standard pillow, so I made it a few inches longer.

The main panel is 22″ x 31″. I cut two of them.

Then I stitched them together, right sides together, both facing up, just along the upper edge. This way the pillow can face left or right, and still have the pattern going in the correct direction. We can’t have upside down beer glasses. If something like that will bother me, it will definitely bother my son.

I don’t have a serger, so I take an extra pass using a zigzag stitch along the top edge. I overlap the stitch a bit, so that it stitches off of the fabric. This leaves a lovely finished edge, almost like a serger. And then I don’t have to do the french seams, which I’m never thrilled with.

I follow the rest of the assembly directions on the AccuQuilt blog post. These are so cute – it’s going to be a challenge waiting for his birthday to roll around. Although it does give me some time to make a few other little things with the scraps. This poor guy is going to get beer themed gifts for a while, because some nutball bought six yards of this fabric. (He received a box pouch a few years ago already!)

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy making pillowcases for you loved ones, too!

4 thoughts on “Making Pillowcases!

  1. I just made a pillowcase using the burrito method (which is really slick). Had trucks on it and was for a young man with special needs in our church. They are so quick to make!

  2. Thanks for the measurements for the directional prints. I have made many pillowcases using the patterns at All People Quilt. But the directional prints do not work with 1 yd of fabric. And, of course, that’s usually what we have in our stash. The beer glasses are great!

  3. Boxer shorts? Grocery bags? Placemats?
    As a quilter, I try to be resist buying fabric with such defined motifs but there are some irresistible ones out there!

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