Don't Worry, Bee Happy

If you don't have bees, make some...

4- 1 1/2" strips sewn together, alternating black and yellow

3 1/2" wide blocks for bee bodies

1 1/2" squares of background fabric. Folded in half and pressed.

Blocks sewn to the corners, blocks trimmed, bee body block pressed

It took a bit to get the wing design down- I tried several versions before settling on this one. Wing paper pattern, wings drawn on fabric and sewn, wings trimmed, wings turned and pressed, wings sewn on block, wings pressed up to show what they'll look like on the finished pillowcase.

Bee band assembled and sewn to pillowcase body.

Assembled pillowcase. Lots of fiddly stuff, then 3 seams, and finished. Cute, no?

P.S. Even not-so-astute viewers will notice that straight isn't exactly straight in my sewing...

On the Case

My friend Susie pointed me to this amazing 3-Seam Tube Pillowcase Pattern. The construction is totally genius, and I'm not going to try to describe it here because the pattern itself does a wonderful job of telling you how to do it. The finished pillowcase uses only 3 seams, and has no raw edges showing, inside or out (I French Seamed the outside seam- which was 1 of the 3 seams).  The pillowcase fits any standard pillow, though the pattern could be easily adapted for larger ones. The website has many other pillowcase patterns, and a wonderful charity pillowcase drive that might interest you. I think I'll donate one or two.

I have a considerable fabric stash, but much of that fabric is in pieces or strips or fat quarters. This pattern needs 27" x 42", and 11" x 42" pieces, so for several of my pillowcases, I ended up piecing the sections, which was fun too.

I had to put quilting and sewing (and everything else recreational) away last fall when work on the Fair Isle book began in earnest. I had some blocks put together for Ladybug Girl, but her quilt wasn't assembled (she got a different quilt for Christmas). So for her pillowcase, I used some of the ladybug blocks. Since I didn't want lots of raw edges on the inside of the case, I lined the body and then constructed the pillowcase according to the instructions afterwards. It's heavier than a standard pillowcase, but totally functional.

I had some of the fabrics left over from Frog Girl's quilt, so I used precut 4" squares for the Prairie Points. I had fat quarter of a different froggie fabric, which I pieced with some other leftover quilt fabrics for the band.

Superhero Boy's pillowcase got a pieced Batman band. Construction note- the pattern says to use fusible interfacing on the band. I did with the Batman pillowcase, but did not like the resulting stiff band. So I omitted that step on the other cases.

Voracious Reader got some wonderful Mary Englebreit *reading girl* fabric, banded with an Aloha fabric (she has Hawaii roots, so not only do the colors look good together, it's doubly relevant).

I haven't made Bee Girl's case yet, mostly because I don't have any bee fabric on hand. I'm going to think on hers. I may try to make patchwork bees for the band... we'll see...