Pillow Sham Tutorial

I finished the top of my "Bee in my Bonnet Row Along", you can see it here. 
 I have to wait until July to get it quilted :)

I'm giving the quilt to my grand daughter to use as a bedspread.

I thought it would be nice if she had a pillow sham to match.

To fit a standard twin pillow, the measurements for a pillow sham are 27" across by 20" down.

I wanted to make the pillow sham into a patchwork of squares.

If the squares are 3" each, I would have 9 across and 7 down.

I cut each square 3 l/2" each to allow for seam allowances.

That makes a total of 63 - 3 l/2" squares to cut.

Row by row, I sewed all the squares together into a patchwork.

I traced  Neo's name onto paper and then traced the letters onto wonder under. 

 Wonder under has a paper side and a rough side.

 I traced the letters onto the paper side, making sure that the letters were backwards. 

Don't cut out the letters yet.

Then I pressed the rough side onto the fabric.

Now you can cut the letters out.

Peel off the paper, and you have some pellon glue underneath.

Lay the letters onto the patchwork and press.

The fabric will stick to the patchwork or whatever surface you press it onto.

I appliqued the letters onto the patchwork with a machine blanket stitch using contrasting thread for each letter.

I layered the patchwork with batting and a piece of white fabric, and safety pinned the "sandwich" together.
I much prefer to pin than to baste!

I machine quilted the pillow sham with a stipple stitch.

I debated whether or not to machine quilt the letters but decided against it.

I wanted to add some trim to the pillow sham so I cut 3 - 2 l/2" X WOF (width of fabric) strips of the pink fabric with yellow polka dots and joined them together as you would binding.

I added them to the pillow sham, the same method as you would use to add a border to a quilt.

 I also used the same fabric for the trim as I did for the border of the bedspread quilt.

Now for the back, it has the same measurements as the front.

I cut two pieces of white for the back to allow an overlap to fit the pillow through the pillow sham.

One piece of white is 21" X 16 l/2" and the other piece of white is 21" X 18".  That allows for seam allowances and a 4 l/2" overlap.

I pressed each end of the overlap under l/4", and then turned it under l/4" again.  I topstitched it to make a nice finished hem.

I machine basted the top and bottom of the overlap together.

I cut 3 more strips of border for the back trim, 2 l/2" X WOF.

I sewed the trim onto the overlapped back.

The front and the back of the pillow sham are finished.

Lay them on top of each other, right sides together.

Sew all the way around using a l/4" seam allowance, leaving 6" open at the bottom.

  Turn the pillow sham through the 6" hole, and press the seams flat.

I sewed in the ditch of the border, through all thicknesses.

The pillow will fit into the pillow sham, and the border will sort of be like a flat ruffle around the pillow.

The seam that I just sewed should be in the ditch on the back also.

It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect because it will never show.
Gasp!!! Did I really say that???? ha ha!

I stuck my hand under the overlap so that you can see that it is really an overlap, and not sewn together!

I laid the pillow sham at the top of the bed so that you can see how it matches the bedspread.  

The bedspread is on a queen bed and isn't quilted.

It is sized to fit a twin bed.

I have it on this bed because I don't want to fold it up and have crease lines.

I'm just storing it here until I visit my machine quilter in July, or I have some guests visiting :)

Here's the pillow sham close up.

I'm really pleased with it!  

I hope that this tutorial was clear enough to understand!

Thanks for following me :)