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How to turn a pillowcase into a skirt

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If you are into precise measurements and exact steps this tutorial is not for you!

I love pillow case skirts. You can find pillowcases at all thrift stores for super cheap, and turn them into a skirt in 30 minutes.  This pillow case is from Good Will in Austin back in September of 2011. Yep, only 9 months later! (Read more on that haul here.) I do promise that pillowcase skirts are super simple and anyone can make it assuming a few things:

  1. You can’t have big boobs and wear a pillow case skirt unless you’re good at putting in zippers. The pillow case needs to be able to slip over your chest! My zipper skills are sucky at best.
  2. You need a sewing machine, and must know how to sew a staright-ish line.
  3. We’ll make 4 darts, but don’t be scared. The seam ripper is your friend.
how to make a pillow case skirt

First, cut the sewn together end of the pillowcase, so that you have a tube of fabric. Make sure it fits over your head and around your hips. I always use the pillowcase hem as the bottom hem for my skirt.

 

Next, get out the ‘ol tape measure, and lay it across your skirt. Min happen to be 20 inches wide. I decided to make my first 2 darts 5.5 inches from the center seam. I stuck a pin in at the right measurements, and then put the tube on me inside out. I pinned up about 2 inches of fabric for each dart.

 

how to make a pillow case skirt

Here is a close up…  It just so happened that the main pillow case seam was at 10 inches.

 

how to make a pillow case skirt

Now, try on the tube of fabric inside out, and pin up what feel comfortable on your body.

 

*This might be all the darts you need.

how to make a pillow case skirt

I ironed my darts to make a good crease. Then pin the triangular piece of fabric, where you just ironed, so that you know exactly where to sew.You could even use an washable pen to draw a line. That would make the dart thing super easy to sew.

I decided I needed 2 more darts. The big butt/hips, smaller waste syndrome gets me every time. Here you can see my first dart sewn, and my second dart pinned up, ironed, and about to be sewn.

how to make a pillow case skirt

Here are my 4 darts…

how to make a pillow case skirt
Now, it’s time for the waist band. I’ve down it a lot of ways on my different pillow case skirts. The easiest is to fold the top down once, and sew. And then fold the top down again, and sew. From the outside you will see only one line like this…
how to make a pillow case skirt

From the inside you see this…

how to make a pillow case skirt
I got a tiny bit fancy on my latest pillow case frock. I did the same thing as above, but then folded the waistband down and ironed the seam. So it looks like this.
how to make a pillow case skirt

After I folded the waistband down, I did a crazy top stitch. I just picked out a random random, fun stitch on my machine. The goal was attempting to blend my not so straight lines together. Check out the above picture to really see what I mean.

how to make a pillow case skirt
On to the embarrassing part, me attempting to take pictures of myself in the pillowcase. This is a tricky situation… setting up the camera on a timer, running to a spot, trying to pose. Here we are…
how to make a pillow case skirt

I couldn’t seem to get my head in any of them. I’d say out of 30 pics I took, 60% were blurry and none included my head. Oh well, you get the point. It’s cute, simple ,and super stinkin’ easy to sew.

There you have it…

Just for fun, check out my ridiculous photo shoot. I had to tape the clothespins to the soon to be kitchen door organizer, and then shoot super fast before the clothes pins fell off. I got a lot of this… Good times 🙂

Have you ever made a skirt from a pillowcase? Made anything else from pillow cases? Have you ever tried to take a picture of an outfit you’re wearing? It’s so hard. Any tips on that? I’d love to hear…
* I thought about deleting the post, but here is the first pillow case tutorial with no pictures. It’s kind of fun to see how the blog as evolved : ) This was post was posted in the first month of C.R.A.F.T.’s life.

Comments

  1. Janis Collins says

    Great idea . I am new at sewing pretty much , I have taken Jean’s apart and made skirts , I have even used my husband ‘s he never wore and added to a skirt before really cute , ,But I was going through my sheets and etc and wondered if you can make a skirt out of pillow case , I Google it and yours popped up great Idea , Thank you for sharing , I’m going to try it

    Reply

  9. cassidy says

    Great skirt! I have never made anything out of pillow cases (yet) and when I take pics of my outfits that I post to my blog I always force my husband to take the pics. He hates it! haha

    Reply

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