A Pillowcase Craft for the Girls.

A princess who is about to sit on a pea, really needs a pillow.  And a princess who is going to have a pillow, really should be able to decorate it herself so she will always remember the super fun party she attended with her darling friends.  I thought, "how EASY!  I'll just whip up a simple pillow case for each girl!"  It turned into more of a project than that, but I think they ended up great, and it was worth it!  A simple pillowcase just wasn't enough, so I found a pattern I had in a book here to do a "flange pillow cover" sort of like this.  I have a ton of extra muslin, so I made all of the pillows out of it.  I didn't have as many large pieces as I thought, so I ended up sewing strips together to MAKE the large squares... = time consuming, but free.  We bought 10 little blue pillows from IKEA that are about $1 a piece.  These say they are 14"x14" but the ones I used were 13" square if that is possible.  I made one 19.5"x19.5" square, and two 19.5"x13" rectangles for each pillow.  The two rectangle pieces each got a double hem (that is my term for pressing 1/4" under, then again, and sewing a line down the second turn), then the two hemmed pieces are sewn right sides together to the large rectangle, and that is it!  Here is the "double hem":

I pressed all of the remaining pillows (after my prototypes) at once, then sewed all of the hems:

After sewing all of the pieces together, the directions said to mark a border around each pillow to sew along for the flange, but that is way too complicated for me.  I seemed to have trouble remembering that half inch on the 19 1/2 inch side, so the pillowcases were all a little off.

I solved that by making a template out of muslin the size of the pillows and pinning it to each finished case - I just eyeballed the placement, then topstitched around it for the "flange".

First I thought we'd use some puff paint sort of pens, but they were SO gloppy and sputter-y and would take SO long to dry, so I went for these great pens instead.  I found glitter pens and solid colors and they were very easy for them to use.  The pens said it would take 4 hours to dry, so we did them first thing (after a couple of minuts, though, they were fine to touch.)

Here is sweet Miss T. showing her finished pillow.

And here is a final pillowcase WITH a pillow inside.  A friend of mine said she had girls decorate pillows for the birthday girl - so the birthday girl got to keep them all and adorn her new day bed.  I think that is a great idea, too!

A perfect pillow for a princess to avoid any errant peas.