Burlap Pillow Cover

Something I'd like to do, particularly in these miserable colder months, is to keep myself busy with projects. I decided to do a project every week this year and post about it. I might have some lame little projects, and might have some a little better, some that work and some that fail, but I thought it would be a fun thing to do to keep my mind off of how gray it is outside. 

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In Spokane, we owned the ugliest chair in the universe. And for some reason, we  moved without the chair but took the pillows. They're scratchy polyester and nothing we'll use. 

That's basically an invitation to make pillow covers. 

I gathered:
burlap

other fabric to put under the burlap that you'll never see

patterned fabric for the back of the pillow

scissors

old pillow to cover

pins

First I measured my pillow and cut my backing fabric accordingly, with a 1/2 inch of leeway all the way around.

I cut the burlap into strips about 2.5 inches wide. I didn't hem the edges but I did stitch along the sides to hopefully limit fraying.

Then I lined 'em up like this and pinned them in place. NOTE: What I would do if I were doing this again would be to sew them to the pillow one by one. But I didn't so I did it by hand later. Lesson learned.

Once pinned, I grabbed my backing fabric, cut it in half and hemmed each side to make an envelope pillow. Then I put both right sides together and sewed all the way around.

I flipped it right side out (thanks to the envelope, I didn't have to leave room)

And stuffed my pillow inside.

And there she is. I don't know why I don't try to make them look pretty before I take the pictures.

I took my pictures before sewing my strips totally in place. Looks better after that.