quick, dirty & cheap

Don’t worry about the cat. She always looks like that.

So I had this alien print flannel fabric that I bought on a whim last year sometime. I think I had planned to make pyjama pants with it, or something, but I’m not whimsical-slash-quirky enough to pull that off even in imagination, I guess, because it hasn’t happened.

Still, I have this goal that whatever fabric isn’t used up by Dec. 31st of this year must leave the house, so … and suddenly it occurred to me that while I can’t wear alien pants with quite the proper style and tone, anybody can have crazy pillowcases!

… I think it occurred to me last night, when my head touched the cold, unforgiving cotton of my current pillowcase. “Flannel would help here,” followed immediately by “I have flannel in the stash,” followed by “OMG I HAVE ALIEN FABRIC! I COULD HAVE ALIEN PILLOWCASES”, followed by a whole lot of mental exclamation points.

And – dreams to reality! – now I do.

And it was the easiest thing ever. Seriously. How have I never made a pillowcase before? It is so easy. It was five minutes of work – although I had the sewing machine all ready, sitting up and threaded, so perhaps that was cheating.

It went like this:

1. remove old pillowcase.
2. fold new fabric in two (along the length).
3. place old pillowcase against  new fabric.
4. cut out length.
5. fold edge of fabric for thick exterior edge. Sew down.
6. sew left seam (raw edges of fabric together)


see? raw interior seam. And the thick exterior edge.

7. sew right seam (tiny edge of uncut fabric). ((This part is totally unnecessary; I just prefer to have two seams. I think it makes the pillow lay better, or some such nonsense. Likely it doesn’t make any difference at all.))

see? tiny seam.

8. Turn it inside out, stuff your grungy old pillow inside, and admire your lovely, brand-new, 2$-a-yard, less-than-15-minute project.

Aliens! Spaceships! Rocketships! Stripes and polka dots and stars – oh, my …

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