Once upon a time, from God Knows When, a queen size pillow was found in our little home, escorted by two plump, solid, huge king size pillows.
I have no recollection of paying for them, nor can I recall any friendly soul who could have presented them but the trio has been following me around for quite a while. They have been great comfort assets for marathon TV watching, sleeping in the car ( not for the driver me, but the girls and the dogs have been the fortunate ones), and for reading in bed.
The challenge, however, was finding pillow covers for this trio. They were so BIG, in comparison to our usual light-weight bed accessories, that nothing would fit them right. I found some bright yellow covers for the king sized escorts ( ha ha…kings escorting a queen–that is how the world should be!), but the queen had to be squeezed into small covers and it was not a nice sight.
The huge escorts were donated to a hill home..one of the knitters was delighted to add them to her stone and mud house. The queen remained and stared reproachfully at me, till I put my head and hands down to the laptop, found this tutorial to make dream pillow covers, found an old printed bedcover for the sacrifice ( all first attempts can go horribly wrong ), and got down to the process.
The pattern and instructions had a Zen like quality about them. Straight clean lines, accurate seam allowances and LOTS of ironing between each step. I followed the instructions blindly and the project could have been completed in an hour. But alas, the hills have an electricity system which is unpredictable at the best of times, and vicious the rest of the time. One seam would be done, and poof! no power for an hour. One seam would be ironed and then……you guessed right!
It was tea time when the final seam was sewn and the cover shaken out. And there they were–two neat, clean, perfectly fitting ( ok, they were an inch longer than my queen) covers with not a thread visible, not a crease or a crinkle. I am delighted. I am going to sew lots of pillow covers–quirky ones, cute ones, covers with cross stitch panels, covers with contrasting bands…once the original pattern has been assimilated by the brain, the entire world ( of pillow covers) opens up!
Lessons learnt from this project?
- Cut cloth straight. I used the rotary cutter and the self-healing mat and it sure helped to keep things going.
- Check on the right side and the wrong side of the material. Though I was using a printed material, there were a couple of instances when things could have gone horribly wrong.
- Keep an iron around you. For ironing out seams, for ironing folds, for ironing our crinkles, for just ironing and ironing ( exhausting).
Very nice Mala!! One more item to add to your Store 🙂