I have been spending a lot of time this week planning my Halloween decor for the front porch. As part of my decor, I usually scatter a few seasonal pillows around on my already back and white swing and my black rocking chairs. This year when I pulled out all my stored decor from the attic and realized my old Halloween pillows were pretty faded and ratty so I decided to make up some new ones. This tutorial includes making your own envelope closure pillow shams but it could be done just as easily with ready-made shams (affiliate link), just make sure they are cotton and another natural fiber fabric that can withstand the heat of a hot iron.
Materials Needed: (Affiliate links included)
1 yard 45″ Orange cotton fabric (one yard makes 2 pillows) or ready-made shams
1/3 yard- 1/2 yard Black cotton fabric
1 yard Pellon Wonder Under Fusible Web Heavy Duty
I used pillow forms I already have but if you do not already have pillow forms you can use any size up to 18″x18″
Tools:
Iron
Scissors
Sewing machine and Pins if making your own shams
Cut a strip of fabric the same width as your pillow form and twice as long plus about 5″ for example for an 18″ pillow I cut a strip 18″ wide by 43″ (18+18+6)
1. Lay strip down with finished edges of the hem facing up. Fold bottom edge up 8″ then fold the top edge down to overlap first fold about 5″ or until your folded square equals the size of your pillow form in this case 18″
2.The first six steps are to create your envelope closure sham, if using ready-made shams skip to step seven.
3.Hem both short ends of your strip, these will be your finished edges.
4. Pin open edges being sure to pin at the hemlines so the folds stay flat.
5. Sew a seam along the open edge. I usually do a couple of back stitches at the hem edges since this is the area that will receive the most stress when stuffing the sham.
6. Turn sham right side out, be sure to get the corned points turned out all the way square. Iron sham flat.
8. For your appliques Iron fusible web to the back of your black fabric using directions provided In packaging.
9. Leave the paper backing on for stability when cutting.
10. Print clip art or draw out the shapes you would like to cut on copy paper and pin to fabric.
11. Cut out shapes. I do not use my fabric scissors for this since I will be cutting through the paper and I don’t want to dull the blades, I have a sharp pair of small craft scissors for this purpose. If you want to use your fabric scissors cut out the paper shapes first with different scissors then apply to fabric.
12. Remove paper backing from applique cutouts.
13. Arrange appliques on the sham as you would like them attached. Iron on.
14. Insert pillow form into sham and you’re done.
I ended up buying two yards of fabric and making four different appliqued shams. The options are limited only by your imagination, here are a few I came up with.
