Gathered Pillow Cover

I had a fun little reunion with some of my favorite girls last summer!  We had tons of fun and even got to do some shopping!

You know you wish you had roommates that you STILL got together with after at least 8 years!

We HAD to hit up the fabric store considering Idaho doesn't have the greatest selection, and the fact that the groups sewing specialist was on hand to give advice.  I found some fabric that I really liked on clearance that seemed to go well with some fabric that I had been hoarding for a while not knowing what to do with it.  I knew I wanted to recover these hideous pillows that came with the BRIGHT ORANGE couches we bought when we were first married.

I found this tutorial for gathered pillow covers by "Ready Set Create" via Pinterest.  Although I thought I would have a better way of doing this (I did mine in one long piece only gathering the middle and then folding the two edges overlapping each other to create a pocket)  I would do this three piece method, with a few alterations.

My process: (meaning the complete process I WOULD have done)

1.   Select fabric and prewash  (you can soak in hot water and allow to dry)

2.   Iron fabric

3.   Cut one piece of fabric that is twice the length of of your pillow (plus 1" for seam allowance) and the same width (plus 1" or seam allowance) Example: A pillow that is 16x16, cut your piece to 33x17


4.   Cut two additional pieces that are just over half the length of your pillow (plus 1" for seam allowance) and the same width (plus 1" for seam allowance) Example:  same 16x16 pillow, cut your pieces to about 11x17


5.   On each small piece of fabric, along ONE width (or shorter side), sew a finished edge (meaning you will iron over the raw edge once about 1/4" and then fold over again and iron, and sew)

6.  Take the long piece of fabric and sew a basting stitch about 1/4" in along each length (a basting stitch is done by setting your stitch length to the longest setting)

7.   Pulling only ONE of the basting stitch strings, gather the fabric on each side until it is about the same size as your pillow.

8.   Arrange and separate the gathering to you liking (to keep gathering in place sew a REGULAR stitch as close as you can to the basting stitch)

9.  Lay gathered piece right side up

10.   Set one small piece of fabric right side down, finished edge towards center and aligned with LEFT end of gathered fabric

11.  Set other small piece of fabric right side down, finished edge towards center on top of first small piece and aligned with RIGHT side of gathered fabric.

12.  At this point you will have three pieces of fabric sandwiched, with the two smaller pieces only slightly overlapping in the middle at finished edges.

13.   Pin all the layers together

14.   Sew around outside about 1/2" in all the way around.  (instead of doing complete right angle corners I found that if I rounded the edges a bit the overall  look was a lot more snug and not so pointy.

15.   Turn pillow cover right side out and there you go!



Finished Product:

You can see what I mentioned in #14 about rounding the edges a bit.
The turquoise is rounded where the green is not, and looks very pointy and not fitted.