How To Make A Pillowcase Farmhouse Grain Sack Style
Learn how to make a pillowcase farmhouse grain sack style in a fun and easy way. It’s a perfect project to add some farmhouse style to our Christmas decor. A fun and easy tutorial that will only need a few supplies and all your love!
Equipment
- Sewing Machine – although you can still do this if you know hand-sewing.
- Cutting machine – Silhouette or Cricut. You can still do it without a cutting machine just print out your work in a simple and easy-to-cut font and use it as your stencil.
- Pins and measuring tape
- Household iron – or heat press if you have one.
- scissors
Ingredients
- White linen size should be your pillow size + 1/2 inch seam allowance (1 cm lengthwise, +10cm (4 Inches) widthwise)
- 2 Red fabric Strips width same as white linen and length about 2.5 Inches
- Buffalo Plaid Red/white fabric width same as white linen and length about 2 Inches
- Press Snaps
- Buttons
- A Pillow Insert.
- Coordinating threads
- Freezer Paper or a stencil of your choice if you don’t have a cutting machine
- Black fabric paint
- Foam brush
Instructions
PREP WORK
- Firstly, wash your fabric to remove any chemical coatings or creases as well as get any shrinking happening before the pillowcase is finished. Then iron it so you can measure and cut the fabric more easily.
- I like to cut my fabric to the dimensions of my pillow insert + 1 cm seam allowance. This way it fits the pillow form nicely and slightly snugly. If you like it tighter, don’t add the 1cm and just cut to the exact dimensions of my pillow insert.
- I just adjusted the design size to the maximum my cutting machine could cut (12 inches wide) because of the size of my pillow.
- Now create your design. I wrote Noel with a pretty but simple serif font to give the farmhouse vibe.
- You can write whatever you want or just use graphics. Imagination is the limit. Just make sure it fits your available space in the pillow cover.
- Once your design is ready and you are happy with it, it’s time to cut it.
- When using Freezer paper it’s important to remember that the waxed side should always be facing up on the cutting mat.
- For this reason, is critical to also remember to flip (mirror) the design before cutting. To do this, you just need to select the whole design and go to Object > Mirror > Flip Horizontally on the top menu on your silhouette studio app.
- Lay your freezer paper on your mat wax side facing up covering the whole sticky area of your mat.
- Load your mat in your cutting machine.
- Set your app to print paper and adjust your knife accordingly. BUT I set the blade to 1 since freezer paper is really light.
- Send to cut.
USING AND APPLYING FREEZER PAPER
- Once cut is done, carefully remove from the mat the inner parts of the design, leaving only the inner parts that actually belong to your design. Like in this case, would be the inner part of the letter “O”.
- Take one piece of your fabric, iron it well, and mark the center. Also, mark the center of your stencil.
- Place carefully your freezer paper stencil waxy side facing down onto the fabric as centered as you can following your center marks.
- Use an iron without steam at a medium-high temperature to evenly heat the stencil for about 10-15 seconds. When the fabric gets heated, the waxy side will stick to it.
- Then add those little inner shapes (like the inner “O” in my case) to the correct places and iron them down.
PAINTING YOUR FARMHOUSE CHRISTMAS PILLOW
- I protected a small cutting mat with plastic and taped the fabric to it. You can use cardboard too but always protect it with plastic. You don’t want the cardboard to stick to your pretty pillow cover.
- Place your stenciled piece of fabric on top of your mat or base.
- Secure the fabric either on the back on around it with adhesive tape.
- Start adding some paint on a paper plate or piece of paper.
- With your foam brush spread the paint all over your design making sure you don’t paint making strokes toward the edges. I recommend painting doing gentle taps to avoid the paint bleeding through the stencil edges.
- Let it dry for a few minutes and peel off the stencil gently and all the inner parts.
- Doing this very carefully and gently, will help prevent the paint from smearing.
- Let it dry completely now. Usually, it takes about 30 minutes to an hour but still, make sure you read the paint directions just in case.
- To protect the design, apply a fabric sealer after you finish painting and the paint dries. This layer of protection will stop the paint on your pillowcase from fading or coming off and make sure it lasts for a long time.
- While it all dries well, let’s work on the pillow decoration.
GRAIN SACK PILLOWCASE DECORATION
- I wanted to create 2 stripes, one on each end of the pillow cover to give that farmhouse look.
- Take your fabric strips and let’s fringe it! Fun huh!
- Before you start fringing the edge, it’s important to square off the raw edges so the fringe is straight, and even
- With buffalo check it’s easier, just trim fabric along the square lines. You could trim it later, but it’s much easier to begin with good edges.
- Carefully start pulling threads out from one side to the other until desired fringe length. Repeat for both sides.
- I used a seam ripper to help pull threads from the fabric and then pull the rest by hand.
- Repeat the process on all 4 strips.
- Place buffalo check fabric on top of the red fabric strip and then place them on both sides of your painted word main fabric as shown in the photo below.
- When you are happy with the placement pin in place and stitch each stripe on both long sides of each strip as close as possible to the fringed edges.
ASSEMBLING THE CHRISTMAS GRAIN SACK PILLOWCASE
- Now, create a double-fold hem on each short side end of your pillowcase pieces.
- Fold up the bottom of your fabric by 1 Inch, and press it into place.
- Fold up again by 1 Inch and press again.
- Repeat with the other 3 ends.
- By now, you should have something like the following photo.
- With right sides together and edges aligned, stitch along both long sides.
- Then zig zag stitch between the seam and edges to avoid fraying with washes.
- Turn your pillowcase inside out and press.
- I made one fake buttoned side and a real one where you insert the pillow.
- On the fake side, just stitch your buttons in place joining both sides of the pillowcase.
- On the other side, I didn’t want to make buttonholes so I used press snaps for the inside and normal 4-hole buttons.
- For this project, I used different buttons all red-colored.
- So here’s the deal. Press snaps have 4 holes, and so do the buttons I chose. So what I did was match the holes from snaps on the inside to the normal button on the outside.
- Define where your buttons will go, start with the snap inside, and then stitch through to the outside.
- Sewing the buttons to the Farmhouse Christmas Pillow
- Insert the needle through the red button and then stitch back inside making sure the needle goes through another snap hole and so on and so forth.
- Repeat this a few times and then finish it with a knot on the inside.
- Stitch the back of the snap in the inner side of the back of the pillowcase piece making sure the stitches stay within the hem and not go through the other side of the pillowcase.
- Repeat with the other buttons.
STUFF YOUR PILLOW
- Now get your pillow insert in there and enjoy your super cute Noel Pillowcase Farmhouse Grain Sack Style!
Notes
THREAD PULLING TIPS
If you find it tricky to get the thread pulled, use a seam ripper to reach the thread and then a tweezer may help get it out. Pull gently to avoid breaking the threads. If a thread does break, use a needle or the seam ripper to work the end out and begin pulling again. Ironing the fabric after you’re finished keeps the threads aligned and easier to work with. If your painted fabric is dry, it’s time to assemble the sack Pillow cover.
If you find it tricky to get the thread pulled, use a seam ripper to reach the thread and then a tweezer may help get it out. Pull gently to avoid breaking the threads. If a thread does break, use a needle or the seam ripper to work the end out and begin pulling again. Ironing the fabric after you’re finished keeps the threads aligned and easier to work with. If your painted fabric is dry, it’s time to assemble the sack Pillow cover.