Last year during the Rifle Paper Co sidewalk sale I caved and bought a yard of their flamingo fabric. I just couldn’t help myself! I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but I knew I needed to have it. Fast forward to earlier this year when I FINALLY started getting my Florida room/bar room together. I realized that the flamingo fabric would make some awesome accent pillows.
I decided to make some envelope pillow covers like I did last year to keep things easy. Making these envelope pillow covers is a pretty easy project even for someone with only some basic sewing skills. You can make the whole pillow cover using just a straight stitch and they are removable.
I paid more for the fabric than I normally would, so I waited until the pillow forms with 50% off before purchasing them. Even with the higher cost of the fabric these still cost WAY less than if I had bought something pre-made at the store. It ended up costing me about $12 per pillow for these.
The pillow forms I got were 16″ x 12″ and the perfect size for the back of my matching Mid Century Modern chairs. The first thing you need to do is cut out the fabric pieces that you need. You need three pieces total – one piece that is 17″ x 13″ and two that are 17″ x 10.5.” Make sure that if the design on your fabric has a “right way” that all of your pieces are cut in the same direction.
Once your pieces are cut you need to turn under the long edge, twice, of your 17″ x 10.5″ pieces. These will become the flaps of your envelope. I turned under about a 1/4″ and ironed it flat. Once you do that you will just need to sew that edge down. I lined up the foot on my machine with the right size of the folded over edge and sewed straight down. You will need to do this on both of your flaps.
Next you need to pin all of your pieces together. Make sure that you put the right sides of your fabric facing each other. I laid the big 17″ x 13″ piece on the floor and then laid one of the flaps along the left side, with the sewn edge towards the middle, and pinned along the right side. Then do the same thing with your second flap along the right side. Lastly pin straight across the top and bottom.
Then just sew all the way around the outside of your cover. I lined up the foot with the outside edge and just ran my straight stitch all the way around. NOW you can turn your pillow case right side out and stuff that pillow in there. It will take a little bit of effort to get the pillow in there, but once you do it will look great!
