Twas the Night Before Christmas…….

A couple of days ago, I changed my profile picture on Facebook.  You know (if you’re on Facebook, and who isn’t?), the big one that stretches across the top of the page?  That one.  Well, I changed it.  Now, instead of the founders of Zeta Tau Alpha, you will see the Christmas pillowcases which I made a couple of years ago.  These ……..
          
This prompted a discussion among my friends as to how they were made and what pattern was used, etc.  And I told my friends that I would put all of the information into a blog post.  So here it is!
                   
As I said before, I made these a couple of years ago and they were so much fun to make!  I really have intended to make more, but I’ve been too busy making other things.  I know……… excuses, excuses!  In any case, here are the particulars so that you can make some of these too.  They are designed by Meg Hawkey of Crabapple Hill and you can find them here.  And let me tell you, they are a breeze to make!  You can transfer and do all the embroidery in just a couple of evenings.  All of the embroidery is back stitch, so it’s easy peasy.  Just grab your tall glass of iced tea, sit down and plug in your Downton Abbey cds and you are set!
Meg includes all the instructions for assembling the pillowcases.  I will say that I glanced at them before I did my own thing when putting them together.  I used the picture on the cover of the pattern more than anything else.   But sheesh, they are PILLOWCASES for Pete’s sake.  It isn’t rocket science.  Oh, let me show you a picture of inside the cuffs …..
             
that is a really bad picture.  Sorry.  But you can see that I used a contrasting fabric for inside the cuffs.  I used rick rack along that edge to make it nice and crisp and cute.  The thing about it is that you can be just as creative as you want to be when you make these.  You can change up the way the rick rack goes, add some piecing along the top of the design …… or the bottom.  These are really fun to make.
Oh, and I need to tell you that she makes a whole bunch of different ones.  The Bluebird pillowcases that I used to feature in my profile ….. the pattern came from here.  And I have some Peter Cottontail ones on my work table right now.  Here, I’ll give you a sneak peak …..
            
          
I haven’t started assembling these yet.  As you can see, they will not be a matched pair!  But that’s another blog post. 
Enjoy,  Merry Gay