DIY Envelope Euro Sham

I found this fabric. The pattern and colors are great, but the weave is a very thick, very obvious basket weave. I should have taken a close up, but you can kind of see it in one of the photos down below. Ok enough about that, on to the making of the pillow sham!

Here’s my stuff all ready to go, and my little helper off to the side.

I measured out the width and height of the pillow sham and drew a light line on the white so I would know where to cut. My pillows were about 25in from seam to seam, so I cut my back square out of the white fabric at 25inx27in. The back piece needs to be a rectangle instead of a square because we are going to cut it in two pieces to create the opening in the back so we can put it on the pillow.

Here are my two pieces. I knew I didn’t want the opening to be right in the middle, so I cut them off center.

Next, I hemmed one side of each piece, which will later become the split opening in the back of the sham. I started by ironing the fabric after I folded it over about a half inch.

Then I sewed a quick seam. If I didn’t have two small children to take care of, and had more time than just 30 minutes in the morning before my toddler wakes up, I would have cut the “long” side of the back piece even longer so I would have enough allowance to turn this seam over and sew another one, covering the raw cut edge of the fabric. You can do that if you want to be fancy, or just turn it once if you don’t care that there is a raw edge showing in the back of a pillow that no one but you will probably ever see!

Here are the two finished edges positioned on the front fabric. This photo below is the one that really shows how large the weave is!

I laid the two back pieces down so I could just cut around them. I overlapped them until they created a square, then cut the fabric underneath the same size.

I don’t have a picture of this step, but once the fabric for the front of the sham is cut, lay it down right (pretty) side up, then lay the back two pieces right (pretty/finished seam) side down. You want both of the sides that will eventually be visible to be facing eachother. Then you pin, and sew straight lines all the way around, about a half inch from the edge. Then turn the sham right side out, and voila!

Here’s the finished product on my bed!