Three Fabrics + Three Seams = Pillowcase Fun!

Every family should have a birthday pillowcase to celebrate birthday week! And those kids in college!

SUPER SIMPLE SEWING

This is super simple sewing - three fabrics and three seams! And with the kids picking fabrics, or you doing the choosing, it makes such a personal gift. And it is where they lay their head at night!

Main fabric - 27" or 3/4yd of 45" wide soft cotton (you cut the vertical selvedge to selvedge, so you just make sure the three fabrics are an even width in the final cut.)

Band fabric - I like 2 1/2" instead of 2" for the band

Edge fabric - 10"

You'll want to wash and probably iron first to make them easy to work with. I used a rotary cutter and mat, but you can measure and cut with scissors. Just make sure of straight edges.

We have a hedgehog "thing" in our family. And Maggie is off to be a camp counselor for the summer, and Andy is in Afghanistan (113 degrees!), so I searched for just the right fabric on www.Spoonflower.com and made these. Three seams. One morning.

FABRIC FUN

You can shop anywhere (I love my local Treadle Yard Goods on Grand Avenue!), but let me tell you a bit about Spoonflower. It is an online fabric company with 650K+ custom-designed fabrics. As in, you could even draw your fabric, upload it, and make your pillowcase from a yard of your design! They have weekly contests for new designs, and the fabrics are tagged by subject and color on the site, so there are actually dozens of selections that come up under "camping hedgehogs." I just checked "popsicles" and 11 pages popped up. With Spoonflower, you choose your fabric type as well - I picked the Cotton Poplin Ultra for soft cotton at $18/yard. You could splurge on your main fabric and use less expensive local fabrics for your accents (check JoAnn or quilt stores in your area). Both hedgehog fabrics, the Happy Camper fabric, Happy Birthday, and the Tooth Fairy fabrics below came from Spoonflower (One needs to show off a bit online!). Something to think about - fabric images often run along the selvage, so you might want more yardage to make your image vertical if it matters for the main fabric (the birthday candles above are running horizontally).

Tooth Fairy pillowcases! Note the tiny tooth pockets on the border fabric. I cut a template out of cardstock - write me if you’d like a copy.

A beautiful floral would be great for a friend or family member who is ill. Or you could do a custom Spoonflower design with family photos. I have some ghost glow-in-the-dark fabric saved for a Halloween pillowcase for Jack from a local quilt store.