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At the last HeartStrings sew-in, Ethel taught us how to make a pillowcase (she makes them for Operation Support for Deployed Military).

Here are the first couple made on my own.

First I chose and cut 3 coordinating fabrics.

• Cuff is cut 9.5 inches by width of fabric (WOF)
• Narrow contrasting band is cut 2.5 inches by WOF
• Body of the pillowcase is cut  27 inches by WOF

To make things quicker – I cut two pillowcases from the same fabric but switched them – so my print fabric is the cuff in one pillowcase and the body in another. I also chose not to use the contrasting band in the 2nd pillowcase.

With the wrong sides together, fold in half and iron the narrow contrasting band.

Lay the Cuff right side up and place the contracting band on top.

Now with the right side facing down,  line up edge of the body of the pillowcase at the top and fan fold the rest of it until you see the cuff at the bottom – keep these folds away from the top edge because that’s where you’ll be sewing the first seam.

Now, fold the bottom edge of the cuff up and pin.

When you’ve got it all pinned, sew using 1/4 inch seam.

Then, reach inside and pull the body of the pillowcase out.

Now iron the cuff, fold in half and trim the selvages edge leaving the side even.

This seems backwards but it leaves no raw edges so after trimming, with the RIGHT sides out (see above photo) sew the side and bottom closed using a 1/4 inch seam.

TURN the pillowcase inside out, press the seam – I use my fingers to pinch and work the seam flat and then press.

Now sew a generous 3/8th seam. This seam will *encase* the previous one and you won’t have any raw edges.

I used the line on my machine to sew the 3/8ths seam and had some stray threads to trim up – use a generous 3/8 seam or even a 1/2 inch seam to avoid this problem.

Turn the pillowcase right side out and give those seams a final press and here’s my finished pillowcase ! Liz emailed a suggestion to top stitching the accent band to keep it from getting all scrunched up during laundering so feel free to give that a try.

Here’s the 2nd one with the body and cuff fabrics reversed. It really is quicker to cut two at once but I didn’t want the pillowcases exactly the same since they’ll be donated. Also because there wasn’t as much contrast between my print and my narrow contrasting band, I left it out in this one. You can make these pillowcases with or without the contrasting band.

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