Removable Decorative Holiday Pillows

We like to decorate for holidays -- one of the things I like to do is have throw-pillows made with holiday fabric.  Pretty simple -- get one 14" square pillow form, cut two 15" square of fabric, sew them together, insert pillow, slipstitch closed.  Result -- one holiday pillow.

Sounds great -- until it's time for the next holiday.  Then, you've got to store the old holiday pillows and haul out some more.  Until the next holiday, when you've got to store the pillows again.  Repeat and rinse.

With maybe 8 pillows per holiday -- and 10 or so holidays a year -- that's 80 or so pillows I've got to find a place to store!

So -- I decided to try a different method -- rather than sew single-purpose pillows, why not make a pillow-case -- insert pillow form when you need it, remove when you don't.  A lot easier storing 80 flat fold-able pillow cases than 80 full-size pillows!




One half-yard of decorative fabric (for the front) ... plus one half-yard of complimentary solid color (for the back) ... will give us two pillow cases AND fit our one yard of fabric requirement!

I'm using 14" pillow forms that I got at Hancock's (I like them better than the ones at JoAnns) for my pillows.  These two pieces of fabric will make us two St. Patty's Day pillows.

To do one pillow, cut a 15 inch square of decorative fabric.  This will be the front of the pillow.  Next, here's a "pillow trick".  If you leave the corners square, they'll stick out like little points when you insert the actual pillow.  To remedy this, "round" the corners a tiny bit!  I don't know why this works, but it does.  Trim all four corners of your top fabric.

Now, let's cut the fabric for our back piece.  We cut a 15 inch square for the top -- but we're going to cut an 18 inch by 15 inch rectangle for the back.  You'll see how we use this extra length in a second.





Once you've cut the rectangle, cut it into two pieces.  I like to cut them a little bit side of center -- giving me one piece about 11 inches by 15 inches and another about 7 inches by 15 inches.









We need two quick hems on these back pieces.  Both hems should be on the "just cut" side of the fabric.  Do a double fold-over hem along the 15 inch sides.  After this, each back piece has one hemmed side and three "raw" sides.  The hemmed sides should be facing each other (so, one hem is on the right side of one piece, another is on the left side of the other piece).





Now, let's assemble three three pillow case pieces.  I'm going to use French Seams, so match the wrong-side corners of the front to the wrong-side corners of one of the back pieces (I like to start with the narrower piece).  Since the front corners are "curved" and the back corners aren't this won't be an exact match.  We'll fix this when we do the French Seams.

Now, set the wide back piece in place.  Have the hemmed edge overlap the hemmed edge of the thin piece.  You'll probably find that if you match the corners of the wide piece, you'll have a pretty large overlap.  To narrow this overlap to two inches of so, just slide the wide piece over.  It's okay if the edges don't match with the edges of the front piece -- again, we'll fix this when we do the French Seams.

I did a lot of pinning to get the pieces just the way I wanted them.  Now, it's time for the French Seams.  Sewing with the front piece uppermost, sew a straight stitch down one side.  We want a fairly narrow seam allowance.  Try for a 1/4 seam allowance.  When you get to a corner, leave the needle down, raise the foot, and pivot the pillow-case 90 degrees.  Then, continue sewing along the next side.  Sew all four sides.  Note that you'll "curve in" your seams when you get to the corners of the front.




Once you've sewed all four sides, grab your scissors and trim those seams to about 1/8.  This is where we trim away any extra from the back fabric ... and also where we make the back fabric match the "curved corners" of the front piece.

Now, invert the entire pillow.  If you want perfect French Seams, use your iron to press the seams flat.  If you want "good enough" French Seams, use your fingers to push the seams as flat as you can get them.  Now, sew along all four side again -- using about a 1/4" seam allowance.  This will enclose the edges and result in a French Seam.

The sewing's now all finished.  Turn the pillowcase right-side out again; use your fingers or a turning tool to make sure the corners are opened out.


Let's insert a pillow!  Turn the pillow-case over.  Open the overlap enough so that you can insert a pillow.  I like to stick it in the wide part first -- just find it a little easier to do it that way.  Once you've got the pillow inserted as far as it will go, grab the other part of the overlap and pull it over the remaining part of the pillow.  Fluff it and push it to get it all straight ...

And here's the finished product!  Note how the corners don't stick out -- that curving thing really works well!  You can now easily store gobs of custom pillow cases -- plus you can easily remove them for washing ... and you don't have to store as many pillow blanks!

Gift Card Bags

We find we're using gift cards more and more come holiday and gift-giving time.  I've been making these little "gift card bags" the last few years -- thought I'd share them since they definitely fall under the "one-yard-or-less" guidelines!

The bags are pretty simple -- the handle can be kind of special if you have a serger with holiday-colored thread for the bag handle.  Or, you could just sew a handle with some ribbon or scrap bias tape.

I like to stock up on holiday fabric -- after holiday season when the prices fall!  Plus -- I found these nice holiday "napkins" for .25 cents each -- bought a bunch of them to cover mantels and such.  They make good gift-bag makings, too.

You can see my Christmas fabric rectangle overlaid on top of my Christmas napkin.  I'll make two bags -- once from each source.

It doesn't take much fabric for a bag -- use a gift card or a credit car for a guideline.  I'm using my Metro bus pass here -- it's about 2 inches high by about 3 1/2 inches wide.  I didn't measure it with a ruler -- I'm just setting it on the fabric to get an idea of how much to cut.  Leave about 3/4 of an inch on each side.  The length should be twice the card's width plus about 2 inches.

After sizing and cutting a rectangle, fold it in half.   Place the card on the fabric near the bottom fold to check the sizing.  Trim the fabric as necessary -- a little too big is good, a little too small is bad!

Again, you want about 3/4 inch on each side of the bag -- and about an inch at the top of the bag (we're going to hem this with a double foldover -- hence the extra.)

Begin by sewing a "hem" on each end of your rectangle.  I used a simple double fold-over and hemmed it down with a straight stitch.

You can see I've already hemmed the left-hand portion of this piece -- I'm hemming the right-hand side right now.

Once done, fold the bag back up -- and sew a straight stitch down each side.  The bottom is already closed because of the fold, so we'll have a "bag" closed on three sides when we're done.

Don't worry about finishing the sides -- we're going to use the serger to both finish and for handles in the next step.

If you're not serging, you can sew some ribbon or some bias tape along the sides (and curve it over the top of the bag for a handle).

If you are serging, begin from the bottom side of the bag and serge up towards the top.  When you get to the top, DO NOT cut off the serging thread like you normally would.

Instead, keep serging -- even after the bag side passes the needles -- so that the thread tail continues to grow.  Then, curve the bag around so that you're serging down the other side of the bag -- going from the top to the bottom.

I've probably made the thread tail a little too long here -- my "handle" looks a little stretched!  Still functional, though!

I made a second bag using my Christmas napkin the same way.  Using a card for size, I cut a rectangle from the napkin, hemmed the tops, sewed the sides, then serged a tail that crossed from one side to the other for a handle.

And -- here are the results!  Use some holiday colored serger thread for more interesting handles (I was too lazy to rethread the serger!)  

Let me know if you give this a try -- I'd like to hear what you think!

Halloween Goodie Bags

We really enjoy holidays at our house -- and Halloween is a big favorite (one year we dressed up a medical skeleton in a tuxedo and sat him at an organ while a recording of Bach's Tocatta and Fugue blared away!  We call him Dr. Feelgood.)

I'm also funny about Halloween treats.  We don't get a whole lot of kids at our house -- so I like to give out good stuff (ie: full-sized candy bars) rather than the bulk bagged things.

The past few years, we've dressed them up a bit -- with little felt Halloween Treat Bags! I size them to fit the full-sized candy bars ... so the size isn't constant; it varies with the kind of candy I find. 

I like to use felt -- you can buy 9 x 12 felt pieces in lots of Holiday colors -- find them on sale and they're 10 for a dollar!  If I were doing a lot of bags (like maybe for a school or a party), then I'd go with a yard of felt.  I put handles on these with scraps of ribbon -- other years I've just hot-glued on pom-poms or scary eyes.Whatever looks like fun!

In this case, I took a 9 x 12 piece and cut it in half length-wise -- to give me two 4.5 inch by 12 inch pieces.










Next, take one side and fold it in half so that you have a doubled piece 4.4 by 5 inches.  Before we sew this, I'm going to use some pinking shears to pink along the unfolded "top".  You don't have to do this -- it's felt, so it's not going to unravel -- but I just think it looks neater.

Now, lets close the sides of the bag; we'll sew a straight stitch down the two "sides" -- AND ALSO along the folded bottom (there's a reason for this).  We're only sewing three sides -- we're leaving the pinked top open.

I used about a 3/8" seam allowance on the sides and about 1/2" on the bottom.

Adding the ribbon handles turned out to be the hard part (as in using up time) -- that's why I don't do it anymore!

Seems like it should be easy -- just take a piece of ribbon 8 about 8 inches long.  Sew one end to the middle of one side of the open top; sew the other end to the middle of the other side.

It should be easy -- but these bags are kinda little and my fingers keep getting in the way!  I ended out having to pin the ribbon down to keep it from slipping -- then I could sew it to tack it in place.  It doesn't have to be a real strong tacking -- you're only carrying a candy bar in this bag after all!

Here's what eight of them looked like. (That's four felt squares cut in half to yield 8 pieces of felt).

This time, I sewed the bags one at a time.  Last year, I placed two 9 x 12 felt pieces together, sewed the bags in place on the 9 x 12 sandwich, then cut out the sewed bags.  I don't know that it really saved me all that much time, though.

I guess it all depends on the size of your candy bars! 

To finish things off, I ran the pinking shears around the remaining three sides of each bag.  That's why we sewed along the folded bottom of the bag earlier!  We're now pinked on all four sides -- which I think makes the bags look "spookier".

And the end result -- here're some bags loaded with full-sized candy bars.  They're all ready for handing out on Halloween.

How do the kids like then?  Well, frankly, I think the kids focus on the candy!  However, their parents really appreciated the bags.  The kids liked them more when I skipped the handles and used glued pom-poms and eyes to make goofy "faces" on the bags.