So, I went to the most logical place to relearn - youtube. After a little exploring and dabbling, I decided to make a pillow case with a crochet front!
Here's how I did it...
1. To get started I followed the instructions in this video.
And got this granny square...
2. After I finished a total of 16 granny squares (it took me three evenings of easy work in front of the TV), I followed this video to connect them together.
And ended up with this big square. This part only took an hour or so. About now I was getting really excited :)
3. Then I blocked my crochet square using this technique (to be completely honest, I just watched this video on mute while I did something else haha):
So, I pinned my crochet square and steamed away using my regular old iron.
Then it was time to build the rest of my pillow...
4. I decided to make an envelope pillow case for the base of my pillow. I cut out one long rectangle of fabric with these dimensions: crochet square height + 1 inch by crochet square width x2 + 6 inches.
5. The next step was to hem the two short sides of the rectangle. Then I wrapped the rectangle inward to the correct width of the crochet square, making sure the wrong side of the fabric faced outward.
6. Then I sewed along the top and bottom edges. Just four straight lines of stitching total and I could flip it right side out to have a pillow case! This is the easiest pillow case and took me about 20 minutes to make from scratch!
7. Then came my least favorite step. I had to hand stitch the crochet square to the front of the pillow case using a whip stitch. This part took me about 3 hours, or as I measure it, four episodes of Hoarders. I usually hate hand sewing, but in the end it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be :)
8. After seeing the crochet square attached to the pillow, I thought it needed a little sumtin sumtin extra. I decided to add a burlap heart! I cut out the heart then machine sewed around its edges so it wouldn't unravel. I hand stitched it on the pillow front using a basic running stitch.
TA DA!!
I think this is the second most time consuming home project I've taken on, which honestly caught me by surprise. But, It was totally worth it and super relaxing.
I think my favorite thing about this project is it has a lot of different elements that can easily be adjusted or remixed into different creations altogether. Essentially, I just took a bunch of very basic crocheting and sewing skills and crammed them into one DIY. If you want to try this yourself but have questions, please don't hesitate to email me and ask or leave a comment!
What's the most time consuming DIY you've tackled?
