cleverly disguised

You may remember the pillows I made for our couch and love seat out of place mats and napkins.  Well, I love them and we still use them however, they have fall leaves on them.  It's just a tad bit past the season for fall leaves!  I wanted to change the pillows somehow but didn't want to buy all new ones and more stuffing.
I was reading my friend Mary's blog one day and she had a tutorial for  making pillow slipcovers, the kind that overlap in the back like pillow shams.  How perfect!
I had bought some fabric at Wal-Mart not too long ago, and I decided to use it.

What you need:
Sewing machine
Fabric
Tape Measure

How to make it:
Determine the size you need to cut the fabric down to.  To calculate this measure the pillow from seam to seam (you are measuring half of the pillow) Mine was 13 inches by 18 inches.  Next, multiply the width by two, (13 x 2 = 26) add about an inch and a half to allow for seams (26 + 1.5 = 27.5) then add four inches, this will be the overlap (27.5 + 4 = 31.5).  For the length add about an inch for seams, which came out to 19 inches for me.  All righty, now that the math is over my fabric was 19 inches by 31.5 inches.
Next, you want to hem the edges that will be seen because of the flaps.  That will be the shorter of the two sides.

Lay the piece of fabric with the hem facing up (as pictured) and fold one side in and then the other on top of it.  I knew that I needed it to be 13 inches on each side.  I measured and adjusted the folds to get the right size.

I then pinned the folds down and stitched straight down the two sides.

Now, turn the pillow slipcover right side out and voile!

Stuff your pillow in your slipcover and you are done!

A simple and quick little face lift for your pillows.  I want to stencil something on the pillows but I am not sure what just yet.  I will be sure to keep you updated on what I decide to do.
Oh, and thanks Mary for the tutorial!