How to Make a Pillow Sham

Crafting your own space

Creating your own decorative pillow shams is a great way to unlock your creative juices and incorporate personal tastes into your bedroom setting. After all, the bedroom is the most intimate room in the home and deserves to be a constant reflection of your inner as well as outer beauty. Making your own pillow sham also allows you to enjoy the beauty of a custom pillow sham without the price tag attached to it. Let's face it, even regular pillow shams can be expensive, so doing it yourself might be your best option.

Choosing your fabric

First, you will need to decide on the type of fabric you want to use. The type of fabric you choose will depend greatly on both the particular bedroom setting as well as the person, or people, it is for. For a more romantic bedroom setting, you might choose from more sensual fabrics such as satin, silk, or velvet. A linen embroidered pillow sham is great idea for an elderly woman. For more basic settings you can choose from cottons, polyesters, and other materials.

Getting started

Making your own pillow sham is a relatively painless process. By following the simple steps outlined below, you will end up with a simple, unique, and beautiful pillow sham cover to add to your bedroom setting. There are a few supplies you will need to gather before you get started. You have already chosen your fabric, so now all you need are matching thread, pins, scissors, a yardstick, colored pencil, masking tape, a sewing machine, and an iron.

The process

1. Measure the height and width of the pillow you are making the sham for. You will need three pieces of fabric. The front piece of the sham should measure the width and height of the pillow, plus room for a 2 to 4-inch border.

2. For the back, you will use 2 pieces of fabric. You will need enough fabric for the border, plus a half-inch for the seam, 2 inches for the hem, and 2 inches for the overlap.

3. Use the iron to flatten out a one inch hem on each of the two back pieces. Use the straight stitch method to sew the hem.

4. Lay the front piece flat and line up the two back pieces on top of it. Use pins to hold it all in place.

5. Sew a seam along the outer perimeter.

6. Next, measure 2 to 4 inches in from the perimeter for the border. Use tape to mark a sewing line. Sew the border.

7. Remove all the pins and stuff your pillow into your fabulous new sham!

More information on shams