Cheater, cheater pillow sham

Maybe cheater, cheater pillow sham doesn’t have the same ring as cheater, cheater pumpkin eater, but making a flanged sham in this manner is so easy, you almost feel like you cheated. This method uses just one big piece of fabric for both the pillow part and the flanges. Another method would be to make the flanges separately and miter the corners. I will do one of those soon.

I used the Dimples fabric, and it’s quite thick. I felt that mitered corners and extra seams would involve too much bulk, so I chose the cheater, cheater method for this one. Sometimes you might prefer the look of mitered corners or they might complement your fabric choice more.

Incidentally, the Dimples fabric is on sale for just a few more days! Through Oct. 31, it’s just $6.98 a yard, down from $12.98 a yard. Hurry and order this gorgeous puckered and dimpled fabric.

Supplies

(Click fabrics for direct links for purchase at Warehouse Fabrics Inc.)

I had 1.25 yard for my standard sized sham, but because my fabric was directional, I really needed more. The crinkles on the back of my sham ended up running a different direction from those on the front. Therefore, if you have a directional fabric, I recommend 2 yards (each piece is 32.5″ tall) for the standard or 2-1/3 yards for the king sham. If you don’t have a directional print and can rotate one of the pattern pieces, 1.25 yards is probably enough for either one.

The pattern

You’ll need to cut out three rectangles for your sham.
Standard sham:
front – cut 1 rectangle 26″ x 32.5″
back – cut 2 rectangles 26″ x 18.5″

King sham:
front – cut 1 rectangle 26″ x 41″
back – cut 2 rectangles 26″ x 23″

This allows a 3″ flange all the way around. You can reduce the size of your flange by subtracting inches accordingly and then sewing closer to the edge in the part where I sew 3″ from the edge.

The process

Take both of your smaller pieces, which make up the envelope back of your sham, and hem one long side of each. Fold over the raw edge 1/2 inch, then 1/2 inch again. If your fabric has a directional print, make sure that you do opposite sides of your two pieces. (The hemmed sides will face the center and overlap each other a bit.)

At left, the coppery fabric is the right side of the FRONT piece. One side of the back piece is face-down on it.

At right, the other back piece has been laid face-down. In other words, I have right-sides together of my front and back. Pin all the way around.

Sew all the way around with a 1/2″ seam allowance. I used my walking foot to help keep my fabric from shifting. Make sure your overlapped back pieces stay in place as you sew.

Clip your corners and turn your sham right-side out through the opening in the back.

At left is the sham from the front. At right is the sham from the back. Push the corners out. I pressed just the very edge of my sham because the nature of this puckered fabric doesn’t benefit from pressing! I did want to make my edges look a little more crisp, though.

Now we need to make the casing for the pillow. To do this, we will sew a rectangle 3″ from the edge of the sham, all the way around.

You could, technically, mark your fabric. But my fabric was hard to mark, and I didn’t want to worry about the markings coming out. Even though my machine has seam-allowance measurements on the face plate, it doesn’t go to 3″, so I measured and put a sticky paper, then taped it down.

I have lined the right side of my sham up with the paper, but I need to be sure to start 3″ from the top and end 3″ from the bottom, so I have marked those with pins. I will start sewing at the pin while the right side is lined up with my yellow sticky paper.