A couple people have asked me about sergers recently – I LOVE my serger – but it’s motherboard went out so it is getting fixed right now. I use it to finish all of my seams. I’m kinda obsessed with it really – but who wants a stringy messy raveling seam after a couple washes? Ick – not me. Plus the serged edges just look so pretty!
Well I wanted to make a couple of things and I didn’t want those icky fraying edges. I thought I would have to wait or use a zig zag to get me by….then I remembered a French Seam. I used to use french seams all the time but with my serger, I had forgotten about them. 😦 French seams encase the unfinished raw edges so you don’t have to worry about fraying. They look pretty and they are strong too!!!!
So, for you today, a simple pillowcase tutorial – using French Seams! I needed to make one for my nephew – and I thought that some of you might like for your children to have cute new fun pillowcases too. A very very simple project – which makes it perfect for a web tutorial!
Materials:
Fabric – approximately 34 inches x 40 inches
Thread
Fold the fabric in half so it measures 34 inches x 20 inches. Put WRONG sides together and sew the seam down the long side. Trim this seam very close to the stitching. This way it is sure to get encased and it’s less bulky. Now, turn fabric so RIGHT sides are together and press this seam. Sew seam again, encasing the raw edges – You’ve made a French Seam! Repeat steps for one of the short sides.
All that is left is to finish up the opening. 🙂 Turn up and press 1/2 inch. Turn up again about 3 1/2 or 4 inches and press. (You may also want to secure this with a few pins.) Stitch the cuff you just formed in place.
Wa la – super simple pillowcase with no raw edges. 🙂 As you can imagine, there are tons of possibilities to embellish and improve upon the simple pillowcase. So go – have fun! (and add pictures to Flickr 😉 )
PS. I just got a bunch of awesome Robert Kaufman fabric in stock too. The Amy Schimler fabric seems perfect for this little project!
And the fabric from Monaluna is to die for! More on those later!
Fabric Family and Fun 
ahh — thanks Aunt Mel. I am excited for my new pillow case to go on my big boy bed.
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to
make your point. You definitely know what youre talking about, why waste your intelligence on just posting
videos to your weblog when you could be giving us something
enlightening to read?
At this momenmt I amm going aqay to do my breakfast, later thhan haviing my breakfast comming agwin tto read further news.