I wanted to decorate for fall without really decorating for fall. Ya know, no pumpkins, no acorns, no leaves. Something fall inspired, but not quite so in-your-face fall.
I came acorss this no-sewenvelope pillow cover tutorial by LiveLoveDIY and it had me at no-sew!
The colors in our family room are neutral with pops of bright colors like yellow and turquoise so I went to Goodwill of Twinsburg on the hunt to find colorful fabric that had a fall feel.
Well hello vintage Chicos aztec skirt!
I actually thought about keeping this as a skirt, but 1) I never wear skirts and 2) even though I tried to convince myself of places I could wear a skirt, it didn’t fit.
I wanted my pillow to have a solid color back so I searched for a coral top to match the colors of the aztec pattern. I found this coral Mossimo sweater which I again considered keeping, but again didn’t fit.
So here’s how I did it:
1. Trim off the waistband of the skirt then cut along the seam in the back to create one big piece of fabric.
2. Drape the fabric over the pillow and measure how much you’ll need. I probably would have cut an 18” x 18” piece, but vertically I only had 15.5” of fabric so I did 15.5” x 15.5” and hoped that the stretchiness of the fabric would allow me to shove the pillow in. #wingit
3. The coral back side would be the “envelope” side of the pillow cover so I needed two pieces. Since these pieces will overlap in the back they need to be a rectangle rather than a square so I cut them at 15.5” wide x 12” tall. I kept the waistband on both pieces so that the envelope closure would have a finished look. #smart #thinking
4. The “no-sew” part of this project is the use of fusible webbing, also known as Stich Witchery. My dad worked in the apparel industry for years so he gave me a bulk size roll of this stuff a few years ago. This is the first time its seen the light of day. Here’s your chance fusible webbing, impress us.
5. Think of the fusible webbing as glue, but in fabric form. Place your fabric so the fronts are facing each other. Place the fusible webbing along the edge between the pieces of fabric. Lay a damp rag on top of all three layers (Fabric, webbing, fabric), then set your iron on top of the rag and let it sit for 10-20 seconds. I had my iron set to steam on a level of 4. The steam and heat basically melt the webbing and fuse the two pieces of fabric together.
6. Here’s a potentially confusing diagram on how to layer the fabric and webbing. The gray square represents my Aztec fabric, the white lines represent the webbing, and the pink and yellow rectangles represent my coral fabric.
7. You can see in image 4 (above) that the back two pieces overlap, but are NOT fused together with webbing . This is where you will be able to flip your fabric out so that all the seams are hidden inside and the right side of your fabric is facing out. Here’s what the back looks like:
8. Squeeze your pillow into the cover and squeeze, shake and pull it so everything settles into the cover nicely. Then, one nice swift karate chop on top and you’ve got a fluffed, no-sew, envelope-style pillow cover!
Happy Thrifting (and no-sewing)!
Katie