a Cup of Thoughts (and fingerprints)..: pillowcases for noelle..

oh boy, i think i am trully mad about noelle, everything i did, it must be for noelle.. including these pillowcases.. store bought fitted sheets only give two pillowcases, while noelle's bed has 4 pillows. so two will be the same color with the sheet, while the other two would be a borrowed pair from other color sheets, and in our house they are white, grey, cream and brown like choco milk sets. imagine, that hot pink crashed with other colors?? I HATE THAT!!!

so, on my first trip to textile trader's @ osborne park one month ago, i saw this huge basket and it says $1 a piece. WHAT??? my eyes got bigger, my heart pounding excitedly and my hand crazily throwing and picking those fabric remnants.. most of them are in a good condition, no rips but sometimes there are stains, fabric pull, discoloration, stuff like that.. BUT i got many many many beautiful pieces.. and i always picked those which has minimum 1,2m length and 1m width.. these white and pink cotton fabric are huge, 1,5mr in length and 1,2m in width. i took two of them, one white suede like fabric, grey-black stripes jersey, white-navy jersey, leather like fabric, stone blue jersey. i got heaps for cheaps, and 1kg pillow fillings for $5!!!

i made one small pillow (half width of regular pillow) and then browsed tutorial for making pillowcases. never crossed my mind that there are so many styles for pillowcases.. forgot their names, but i opt to this style.. it's like envelope so i am going to call it envelope pillowcases..

firstly, i wrapped the pillow with the fabric to get the idea of how the case will look like. the opening both upper and lower must be overlapped and the pillow can't be seen from the opening. i marked the lines of the opening, and then i spread the fabric flat before cut it 90cm x 55cm. i use both fabric remnants and still got some leftover which will be perfect for the small pillow's case :)

one thing i hate about cotton fabric is they will FRAY so they need to DI OBRAS or sarger (spelling) to avoid fabric fraying. and the problem is, i dont have the sarger machine so i made this pillow with double sewing (outside, inside) to prevent fraying. with WRONG SIDE facing you, fold the 55 cm side by 0.5cm then fold again, pin, then sew. you will see the fraying threats is inside the folding. do the same for the openings side.

after you got both opening secure from fraying, arrange the fabric so it become like envelope, RIGHT SIDE on the outside, overlap for the openings, then pin the right and left sides, sew. you will get envelope with frayed sides. trim the excess fabric as close as 3mm to the stitch line, flip the case so you got WRONG SIDE on the outside. iron flat those pillowcases and you'll get smooth and flat sides.