Easy DIY Pillow Cover

When I made the ottoman the other day, I had a strip of leftover fabric. The piece was about 2 feet long, and since it was the decorator fabric it was 54 inches wide. This was the perfect size to make a quick pillow cover for one of the ugly pillows that came with our couch. I'm making it my mission to cover all of these pillows eventually. I can't stand that they are the same color as the couch. Does that drive anyone else crazy?

This pillow cover was especially easy to make because I did not have to line up a pattern on the fabric. I simply hemmed both edges of the fabric so I would have nice clean edges along the opening. Since I wanted the cover to be removable, I needed to fold and sew the fabric so there would be an opening in the back, not along the bottom of the cover. I folded the fabric into thirds, with the right sides in and a little bit of an overlap.Lastly, I sewed both of the long edges together and turned the fabric right side out.

I stuffed the pillow in at this point and realized I had two problems: 1) the pillow cover was humongous and b) the pillow stretched out the opening in the back and you could see the ugly brown pillow.

Since I wasn't worried about lining up a pattern on the fabric, the first problem had an easy fix. I just turned the fabric inside out again and sewed another seam about 2 inches further in. This made the pillow cover about 2 inches smaller in width and that was perfect for my pillow.

The second issue took a little creativity to fix. I bought some buttons a few weeks ago, but I didn't realize that I needed a special setting on my sewing machine to make a button hole. Womp womp. Fortunately, I had some elastic cord laying around. Since I had sewn a hem to make clean edges at the opening of the cover, I could sew a loop of elastic in there without it being visible from the outside of the fabric. Then I sewed the buttons right onto the pillow. I'll let the pictures do the explaining.

The elastic and button do a great job of keeping the ugly brown pillow hidden.

 The pillow will live in our living room for now, but its so beautiful out today that I could not resist taking the pictures outside. Seventy degrees in March in upstate New York? I'll take it!

Don't mind the dead grass in the background. It is only March after all. Snow is not out of the realm of possibility yet! Simon's loving the great weather this week too. He was such a good boy posing for the picture that I had to share it!

 He's such a mama's boy, and I love it! :) I hope the directions were easy enough to follow. Have you made any pillows recently? Before this year, it had been about 18 years since I had. Junior high home and careers class baby! Are you enjoying this beautiful weather? Let's hope it sticks around!

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen