How to make a pillow cover with an envelope closure

Yeesh!  Sometimes it is the smaller projects that take a lot of time to write a tutorial on the process and this is one of them!  Here’s one more project to cross off the list for Pip’s room…one step closer to the big day…an entirely complete room in my house!  Can you tell that I am just slightly excited about the prospect of that?!  Today my power tool of choice is my sewing machine, and I used it to make pillow covers with an envelope closure.  And it’s pretty cool how the stripes take on a new look by cutting out some triangles and sewing them together.

I made a couple of pillows like this for our couch awhile back, and when I found the clearance sheets for Pip’s room that I talked about in the Scrap Wood Upholstered Footstool I recently posted about, I knew I eventually wanted to make some pillow covers for her room using the same process.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

First we need to make a pattern.  This looks complicated.  It’s not.  I used a 14″ square pillow form.  A square pillow form would work best for this, so whatever your dimension is (X) the 14.5 would be (X).5″ and the 7.5″ would be half of your (X) plus .5″.

Now use your pattern to cut out 4 triangles per pillow form.  Make sure your pattern pieces are on the same line of your stripe for each one.

The triangles are not stitched together in this next picture.  Just showing you why the cutting out part is important.

Pins would be a really good idea at this point.  If you have problems with your fabric “crawling” on you (one side moves faster or slower than the other and the end of your stitching doesn’t match up when you are done stitching the seam together) then I would definitely pin.  Right sides together, and matching up the stripes from each triangle are important at each pinned spot.  Stitch two smaller triangles, then the other two, then stitch the two halves together.  Quarter inch seam allowances.

I  have an aversion to pinning, so I didn’t…but I was careful to match stripes down the entire seam.

That finishes the top.  Now the back needs cut out.  Mine turned out too big since I had a lapse in the thinking process and included 1/2″ seam allowances in my sketch.  It might still be big with the new dimensions, not sure.

Iron a 1/2″ over, twice to finish the 15″ sides of both pieces.

Overlap the two back pieces, right side up.

Place the pillow cover front over the back pieces.  Although it would make more sense to put the pillow cover top down, right side up, and lay the backs overlapping over the top piece.  Go figure that I would do something the hard way…so not like me…Not!

I had to trim some excess from the back pieces, as I mentioned earlier.

I did pin this time because I had to.  The two back pieces would have slipped around

I think I made my seam allowances a little more than 1/4″ for all four sides, so that the cover fit snugly over the pillow form.  Just a little bit though.

Turn the pillow cover right side out and slip in the pillow form!  Here’s how the back turned out.

Voila!  Not too difficult, but pretty neat.

Do you see the flowers on her nightstand?  Pip picked those out at Kohls in their Christmas clearance section and she paid for them with her own money.  I love them–she’s got good taste!

Interested in making another pillow cover?  Check out the How to sew a Ruffled Flower Pillow tutorial.