Pillowcase

So - my every first project was a pillowcase. I had my ribbon fabric made, and decided that a pillowcase looked to be about the most simple thing on the planet, so surely I was capable?

1. Grab an old pillowcase you have, so that you can get the measurements off it
2. You want to use regular fabric for the larger piece (I used calico because it's cheap and plentiful and soft to hug into) and then your ribbon fabric for the smaller piece which will eventually be the 'front' of your pillowcase.
   
3. The orange squares are the size of your existing pillowcase, the yellow is that little fold down bit that stops the pillow from falling out, and the red is the amount of extra you want to give yourself as a seam allowance (books say 1.5cm, but I usually use an inch - because I am old).
4. Pin the pretty sides of the fabric together - folding that yellow piece down (you may want to seam the edge first if you wanna be fancy). Then sew the 2 pieces of fabric together... as you sew you will also sew the folded yellow piece down - so you need to be careful that all the fabric is under the needle and not slipping away as you begin sewing. I stop sewing from time to time and do a quick visual check, because I am too retarded to do this on the fly.
   
5. So you have now sewn 3 sides (you can either sew the 3 seperately, or you can stop at the 2 bottom corners with the needle in the fabric, lift the foot, reposition the fabric to go in the new direction, lower foot, hoon on with your sewing). The little yellow flap is at the open side (remember it stops the pillow falling out).
6. Sew a top seam (not together! take out the front little clippy thing in front of your sewing machine so you can put things under it, this allows you to sew sort of in a circle... hard to explain, but the fabric goes under the machine while you sew what's on top).
   

And there you have it, turn it inside out and you will be amazed to see it actually looks like a pillowcase, except you made it. So crazy.