Tutorial: Fifteen Minute Envelope Pillow Covers

Since we've been back from our trip I've been feverishly re-dedicating all of my time to Operation: Save Our Collective Lives. With the living room completed over the summer, and the kitchen shortly after, I've now turned my attention to the kids' room and it's becoming a time-and-money-eating-must-make-everything-uber-project. Although with all of the furniture now assembled, disassembled and/or be-garaged I've finally moved onto the sewing phase. So only seven months after I promised, I present you The Easiest Pillow Covers in the World tutorial.

• Gather your materials. You're going to need a pre-filled pillow, half a metre of fabric and some velcro.
• Measure your pillow. Mine is 50cm x 50 cm so I'm going to have one square of fabric these exact dimensions: And two rectangles that are 29cm x 50cm (the 29cm being slightly over half of 50cm). If you're using a different sized pillow a good rule for height is half of original height plus 4cm: I wanted my pillow covers to be pretty loose, but if you want a puffier pillow and a tighter case use dimensions slightly smaller than your actual pillow (and also a longer strip of Velcro to stop it gapping).
• Edge finish one of the long sides of both of your rectangles. I used a serger but an overcasting or zigzag stitch on a regular machine is fine.
• On one of your rectangles, fold down about an inch of the finished edge to the wrong side of your fabric and press.
• Stitch the fold down close to the edge.
• Fold the rectangle in half and place a pin to mark centre. Centre a two inch piece of Velcro on the fold.
• Sew a box around your Velcro to secure it.
• Fold your other rectangle in half and place a pin at the centre. On the right side of the fabric, centre the other strip of Velcro about half an inch down from the edge.
• Sew a box around this piece to secure as well.
• Lay your big square piece out with the right side facing up. Put your rectangle with the fold on top of the square, right sides facing and align their edges. Put your other rectangle without the fold along the opposite side (also right sides facing), and align these edges as well. The velcro bits will attach. Pin all the layers together so they don't shift.
• Sew all the way around the square on all four sides.
• Turn right side out and fill with your pre-filled pillow. You're done!

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