I'm a beginner at sewing, so anytime I make something it feels so good! I tried to put togheter a tutorial for my first ever pillow case with zipper, probably one of the easier projects if you want to learn how to sew. I wish I'd taken more pictures during the making. Here's the finished pillowcase:
Both the pillow and the fabric were found in the storeskrald (a sort of danish trashroom, present in most buildings, but for stuff that is going to be recycled by 1) thrift stores, or 2) other people who may take it (like me), or 3) burnt to make energy for the city). I bought the zipper in a thrift store, so the whole project costed 2 danish kroner.
You need fabric, a zipper, scissors, pins, paper to trace the measure of your pillow case, a sewing machine OR needle and thread (if you wanna sew by hand). That’s it.
Trace the measure of your pillow case on paper (leave about 1,5 or 2 cm more, according to the thickness of the fabric and how it stretches). Pin the paper on fabric and cut the fabric down to the right measure…you need 2 pieces of fabric (with the same exact size).
Now you’re ready to sew the zipper! The zipper should be just a little shorter than the length of the side it’s gonna be sewn on.
Place one of your fabric cut out RIGHT SIDE UP and place the zipper WRONG SIDE UP at the very top of the piece of fabric, like above. Pin it and sew the top part of the zipper (remember to use the zipper foot if you use the machine). You should do the same for the other piece of fabric - don’t panic, it’s easy, just not very intuitive - like anything related to sewing! Then your zipper is sewn in nicely.
Now open the zipper towards its half and sew together the pieces of fabric on the other 3 sides (the right side, left side and bottom), fabric should be WRONG FACE UP (basically you flip it, then sew it). Reinforce the corners by sewing back and forth on them.
Then through the opening you left with your zipper you can flip the whole thing back, and that’s your finished pillow case. Insert pillow!
As you can see from this last pic, the zipper wasn’t sewn in with the most precise technique…mmh..I used a fabric that was very thin and very very stretchy - thing I usually try to avoid (I’m just a beginner after all…). But I couldn’t resist the color!
