Friday, November 13, 2015

A Gift a Day Gift Eleven: An Embroidered Pillow Sham



After my son got a bedroom redo for his birthday, my daughter got really jealous of his embroidered pillow sham and really wanted me to make one for her.

So, I figured Christmas would be a good time to do that for her.

I made the pillow case out of bleached white muslin (like I said, work horse fabric).  By the way, when I get like 10 yards of muslin, since it's not pre-washed and thus is going to shrink, I wash the entire 10 yards at once, dry it and then untangle it and then iron the entire thing at once.  This saves me a lot of time when it comes to working with the fabric.

To make a pillow case I just take an existing pillow case, turn it inside out and just trace around it with a pencil and then add double the folded over open end onto the fabric so that when I fold the fabric over it'll be the right size.  I then sew it up and then take pinking shears to the seams to help stop it from fraying (because I'm lazy and didn't want to do a double folded seam).

I embroidered the first letter of my daughter's name onto the pillow and then made a border-like design on either side to make the pillow case look fancier than just having the A on it.  I eyeballed the design and drew it onto the finished pillow case in pencil.  I outlined the A, the flowers and the vines in stem stitch.  I filled in the A with varying lengths of satin stitch and then added french knots for the little flowers.  I also did french knots for the middle of the border flowers as well.

By the way I got the design for the A from here and got the idea for the border design from here.


Total Time to Make Gift:  Three Hours between the embroidery and the making of the pillow case.

Total Cost to Make Gift:  I had all the materials to make this, so it was free for me to make. 

2 comments:

  1. You do beautiful embroidery work. I'm sure your daughter will love it!

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  2. I think your daughter will have quite the "Fancy Nancy" Christmas this year. The pillowcase is lovely and would be a perfect gift for an older recipient as well.

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