Making Patriotic Pillowcases

This afternoon I made a couple of patriotic pillowcases.  Early next week I'll mail these to Carol at Brown Quilts blog.   If you follow this link you can read the story.  Carol explains it so much better than I could.  Carol's friend Jami who has distributed countless patriotic pillowcases and quilts to our service men and women has been diagnosed with cancer and wants to be sure there will be plenty of pillowcases to go around, so Carol asked for her blog readers to make a pillowcase or two and send it to her.  Here is my donation:

  These pillowcases are really easy to make.  Here's how I did it:

For one pillowcase you will need:

27 inches of main pillowcase fabric

9 inches of cuff material

2 inches of trim (optional)

Press the 2" trim piece in half with wrong sides together.  Lay the 9" cuff piece right side up on your cutting mat or a table.  Next lay the 2" trim piece on top of it matching raw edges.

Put the main pillowcase fabric on top of all of this face down.  Match only one raw edge and pin together. 

Now roll your pillowcase fabric up toward the top where you have pinned. 

Next pull the bottom of the cuff up over this rolled up pillowcase fabric and pin the raw edge to the other raw edges.  Some people call this a "hot dog pillowcase" because it looks like a hot dog rolled up in a bun. 

Sew along the pinned edge.

Now reach inside of the tube and pull the main pillowcase fabric out.  It is a bit tight, but just whenever you think it will never come out of that tube, it slides right out. 

Now all you have to do is give the piece a little press to square up the top cuff.  Put your pillowcase right sides together and stitch along the long edge and across the bottom.  Turn right side out, press, and you're finished.  (I usually top stitch 1/2" or 5/8" on top of the pillowcase along the sides where I just finished sewing so that there are no raw edges inside of the pillowcase.)

I like this pattern because by sewing the pillowcase this way the raw edges of the cuff and trim piece are all enclosed and by top stitching, the raw edges inside are also enclosed to give the pillowcase a more finished look. 

I hope you are all finding some time to stitch today....and maybe even to make a pillowcase.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.