Se Hace Camino Al Andar

Okay, today was sort of a magical day in mommyland. The bear took a long, long nap this morning during which I was able to do the dishes, vacuum the living room rug, pay the bills and get my Facebook on. Yeah! Then, the bear woke up in an excellent mood. We had a little snack, then took a trip to Ikea. I conquered my fear of driving in New Jersey, and arrived at Ikea unscathed. We did our shopping, had the usual swedish meatball lunch and with the exception of a post-lunch, really-need-a-nap-meltdown at the tail end of our shopping trip, the bear continued to be in excellent mood. As expected, Alice fell asleep in the car on the way home. I found rock star parking in front of my building, and was able to take Alice out of the car and upstairs to finish her nap, even though she woke up in transition. She continued to sleep for another hour or so. Score!

While she was napping, I made a pillowcase! Witness:

This is an envelope pillowcase, an incredibly easy project since it requires no sewing of buttons or zippers or velcro! I used instructions found on Curbly. The instructions are super simple, so I’m going to throw in my two cents.

1. You can see in the photo that the slipcover is a little loose. I like my covers to be snug, so the next time around, I might only add an extra half inch to the width and an inch to the length. (In fact, I might just go ahead and cut off the bottom of the case and re-sew it.)
2. Press, press, press. Iron your fabric before you pin it. Press those seams open before you flip it inside out. It’ll make everything nice and sharp.
3. You can’t see it but the inside of the flaps are raw edges. Even though it’s hidden, I don’t like knowing it’s there. Next time, I will clean up those unseen raw edges.
4. Definitely use a turner to poke those corners out. I happen to have a bone folder, so I use that but you can use chopsticks or anything long and pointy.

So that’s my two cents (or 4) on this pillowcase tutorial. I figure I can have the rest of my pillows done in about three nap sessions!