Guest Room Part II: Easy 'Recipe' for Pillow Cases!

I call my mom whenever I need a sewing tip, pie crust recipe, or a creative name or funny spur of the moment rhyming song. My mom can make anything. She comes from a line of what is nowadays a dying breed, people who when they needed something, made it instead of bought it. My mom has the ability to see the potential in things. She just saws it in half and paints it and Voila! A Dresser! A Shelf! A Grand Piano!

One day during one such call she gave me this easy 'recipe' for pillow cases! These pillow cases are basic with no frills but they make a nice clean modern look. They are meant to be slept on, but cute enough to be decorative. I like to use 100% cotton.

The basic formula for these pillow cases is...

For the front:

Measure the width of the pillow and add ONE inch, so a pillow that is 20 in wide cut the fabric 21 in wide, this allows for a 1/2 in seam allowance. I let the tape measure go loose and make sure it folds around the sides a bit.

Do the same for the height if the front 17 in high cut fabric 18 in. The front of this pillow case would be 21 x 18.

I am using a neat vintage black and white striped fabric found in my grandma's basement.

For the back:

Use the same height (in this case 18 in )

For the width add 5 in. So the back of you pillow case will measure 26 x 18. Fold this piece in half and cut, you will then end up with two pieces measuring 13 x 18. These are the back pieces to your pillow and will allow you to slip the pillow inside the case and also remove for washing.

Starting with your two back pieces fold over 3x and iron one long edge on each piece.





Then sew each of the two ironed edges



Lay your front piece FACE (pattern) side UP. Lay your two back pieces face Down on the front piece of your pillow. The two sewn edges will be in the middle and they will overlap somewhat.






Now pin all the way around the outside and sew using 1/2 in seam allowance.



When I go over the overlapping portion I like to do a little reverse stitching to reinforce the 'joint'.



Once you have sewn all the way around and tied the treads off, turn your pillow case right side out! You will have an opening to slip the pillow in.



The pillow you saw in the pictures above was the throw pillow for the bed. I also used this 'recipe' for the big pillow cases as well.

Here is the finished product! For the big pillows I used a really neat black and white 'wood grain' print fabric I found in the Joann fabrics quilting section.

GUEST ROOM Part I

Welcome to kittymodern.
I love decorating blogs and am inspired by many! However, I want this blog to not just be about rooms and designers that inspire but about how the average Jane can use the inspiration we find to make our own spaces beautiful.

We recently purchased our first home and we are slowly but surely making it our own. One of my first projects is the guest room. I was inspired by a room by interior designer David Lawrence featured in June's House Beautiful, photographed by Jose Picayo. The color palette may be different from the one I chose, but it just goes to show how one little detail can make an impression and spark a project! I noticed that the curtains in this room had a solid color edging. I liked how it gave the white curtains a 'pop' and picked up on the other yellow in the room.

We painted the guest room a light grey-ish purple and I wanted the main elements to be black and white.

Curtains are an easy way to add a lot to a room for not a lot of money. My rule is hang brackets 3" out from the frame and 6" or higher above the top of the frame. This adds height to the standard 8' ceilings most of us have.

I started with white curtains I bought from Ikea for about $14. Next I bought black edging to sew on to the curtains to achieve the look I wanted.

Here's what I did...

After ironing everything I started at the top of the curtain. I opened up my edging...

And fit the edge of the curtain in the fold of the edging.

Pinned it!! I did this all the way down one side. (I pinned and sewed one side at a time.)

I started sewing at the top of the curtain putting the left side of my presser foot at the inner edge. I used this as a guide to keep my stitch straight.

After I did the two sides, I did the bottom. I again lined up the edge of my curtain with the fold of my edging, and pinned.

As you can see the bottom edge strip ends up on top of the side strips.

I used the reverse function on my sewing machine to secure the end.

This is what it will look like!

VIOLA!!! The curtains are finished!!


I used 3 packages of quilt binding (edging) per curtain panel.

COMING SOON...

Pillow cases for the guest room.