pillow talk

First of all, thanks for all the kind comments about our bed- so sweet! A couple of people were wondering about the striped pillows on our bed, seen here:

Well I've been enamored with the idea of three big square pillows on our bed forever and I knew when we will built our bed it would be the perfect time to make this pillow-themed dream come true. Luckily, I found the euro shams on the cheap at Marshall's ($12.99 a pillow). I also knew I wanted to tie in some navy with the light blue and green color palette already present. 

While at Ikea, buying sconces, I spied this navy and white striped fabric for $7.99 a yard. I bought four yards, so that I'd have a little left over after pillow-making. 

The first thing I did was wash the fabric to prevent any future shrinkage issues. 

Then I laid it out on our living room floor to make the cuts. 

The euro shams were 26x26 so I made 28x28 squares to give myself some leeway in terms of hemming.

I folded the fabric in half so that I could cut the pieces for the front and back of the pillow at the same time. Thanks to the stripes, it was relatively easy to my straight, even cuts.  

Next it was time to assemble the pillow covers. Now, remember I'm no sewer so I did all with hem tape. 

1. First I laid my two pieces of fabric out on the ironing board and ironed out the wrinkles. 
2. Next I cut one piece (which would later become the back of the pillow) straight down the middle to create two even halves. 
3. This picture shows both halves. 
4. The I hemmed one long side of each of the halves, leaving the other three sides unhemmed for now. 
5. This picture shows the hem created by using the iron-on hem tape. 

Next, I laid the front of the pillow (uncut square) face up on the ironing board. I laid the two halves (slightly overlapping) face down on top of the front. In other words, everything is assembled inside out. You do this so that none of the seams show in the end. Then I just hemmed the edges of the entire square. You can see in the picture above that after the hemming of the two halves for the back, the front square is much larger. This is fine because the cuts were intentionally made bigger to accommodate this. 

Sorry for the blurry iphone picture!

The next step is to trim the edges so that everything is the same size again. At this point, we're left with a fully made inside-out pillow cover, with an opening across the middle of the back. 

Next, I reached inside the pillow and turned it right-side out. I also ironed the cover once more so that the edges laid flat. 

Lastly, I stuffed my pillow inside. You can see from this picture that the opening in the back is quite large. If I made this type of pillow for a couch I would probably fasten the back with buttons or velcro or something. However, for the bed these work fine. You can't see the back at all and the opening allows us to easily wash the pillow covers with the rest of our bedding. 

I originally planned to replace the green shams (from Pottery Barn 3 years ago) with these new pillows but when I made the bed for the first time, I loved the green against the crisp blue and white, so they are staying for now! I love all the pillows we have on our bed, it makes it look extra comfy and inviting!

PS: Horror of horrors! My camera took a spill and broke halfway through this pillow-making process, which explains some lack of photo documentation. Luckily, it's under warranty and is off (hopefully) being repaired...