Evan's Room - Pillows

Well, it's been a few weeks now since I finished Evan's room and at least a month since I finished these pillows. I guess I'm just too busy to blog frequently!

Here are the completed pillows:

Front of Hungry Caterpillar pillow

Back of Hungry Caterpillar pillow (the Butterfly side)

One side of Brown Bear pillow

Other side of Brown Bear pillow

I more or less followed this tutorial at Aesthetic Nest to create them:
http://www.aestheticnest.com/2012/09/sewing-pillow-covers-with-invisible.html

However, although the raw edges are clearly going to be inside the pillow, I still didn't want them to fray when washed, so I first sewed along 3 of the edges with the wrong sides together as shown:

Then I turned the pillowcase inside out and ironed the seam flat along these 3 edges:

Next, since the bottom edge has to be left open to install the zipper, I folded the raw edge over twice and ironed a thin hem, then sewed the hem to encase all raw edges.

 Then I followed all instructions on the aforementioned blog site. Having the 3 edges already attached made it slightly more difficult. It was a little harder not to capture the zipper when attaching it to the bottom, open end. However, it was still possible and worth it to have no raw edges.

When sewing around the pillow after installing the zipper, I had to be sure to sew far enough away from the edge to capture the edges within the seam. So, if in your first sewing step above, you sewed a 1/8" seam allowance, you will now want to do something of about 1/4" so that the raw edges will be hidden inside the seam. This sounds confusing written out, but hopefully it will make sense and be crystal clear when you're in the process of sewing it!

Notes about the Caterpillar pillow:

1. The fabric is the Very Hungry Caterpillar panel from fabric.com. It comes attached as one long piece. However, it is NOT a perfect square by any means. The angles are all funky and the sides are different lengths. Also, the caterpillar panel has different angles than the butterfly panel. Since they come attached as one long piece, theoretically, you could fold the panel in half and have one side that's folded and doesn't need sewing. However, since the squares are so crooked, this wasn't possible. Also, one of the images would have been upside down, although I didn't consider this as much of a problem since you will only see one side at a time. I ended up cutting the panel in half and lining up the two panels back to back as best as I could. This was really difficult to do, so I ended up lining (and cutting the edges) based on the caterpillar panel since I wanted this to be the main focus (it's a boy's room). In the end, it turned out much better than I thought despite the severely crooked fabric. Hopefully you will get lucky and your fabric panel won't be wonky and crooked like mine!
2. After completing the pillowcase, it's dimensions were roughly 20" x 20". I was debating whether to go with a 20" x 20" pillow or a 24" x 24" pillow from JoAnn. I ended up going with the 24" x 24" pillow since I think it looks better snug. I was able to stuff it in there, but I ended up ripping the seam a little by the zipper. You should be able to see this from the pictures. I can fix this, no problem, if I ever get around to it.

Side image of Hungry Caterpillar pillow showing uneven panels. On some edges, there is no green at all. I squared it up based on the caterpillar side, so the butterfly side is much more crooked. 

Invisible zipper on Hungry Caterpillar pillow. Would likely look better if I were a more experienced seamstress and/or had an invisible zipper foot. I don't really care that it's visible though and am overall pretty happy with it.

Notes on Brown Bear pillow:

1. The fabric also came from fabric.com. I only ordered one yard and there was a small hole a few inches away from the edge, so I didn't have as much fabric to work with as I'd like. All the animals are facing the same direction except for the sheep, which I found odd.
2. The pillowcase is definitely longer on one side than the other. I just stuffed it into a square pillow I already had on hand, so it is tight up and down, but very lose side to side. Maybe I'll make a rectangular pillow one day so it fits better, but probably not! :)
3. I used a regular zipper for this one.

Well, that's it! Please don't vote me as having the most long-winded, confusing post ever!