Sewing Decorative Vintage Pillow Cases (Fairies Part II)

A previous post on the drawing, coloring, and embroidering of a whimsical fairy dealt with that aspect of pillow decoration. The colored and embroidered fairy is at rest with a bumble bee on a lily pad leaf and has been made into its final application on a small pillow case.

These little pillows would make darling baby gifts, and would also look charming on a rocker as a back pillow, or as just another girly decoration on a bed or sofa; I plan to make a few more and display them on my Etsy store in the near future.

The following is a brief tutorial on how the pillow case was made with vintage fabrics that display hand embroidery, cut work and drawn-work. Pictures are shown to accompany the tutorial.

1) Decide on the picture you would like to transfer for embroidery purposes. Make sure the lines are as simple as your embroidery skills allow. (In this case, a fairy was used, but some child might like a brightly colored green frog on his pillow with contrasting bright colors.) Complete the tinting and embroidering of the chosen image.

2) Gather materials of small travel pillow (available at discount stores for under $4), vintage fabrics such as old table cloths, napkins, handkerchiefs, etc., threads and sewing equipment; lace seam binding or ribbons (optional), measuring tape and scissors;

3) The finished pillow (below) showcases two different fabrics laid on top of one another. In this case, a regular sized peach colored pillow case with a drawn-work interior was used for the under fabric; the outer edging of the existing case was turned inward and sewn down to further emphasize the previous vintage drawn-work. For the over fabric (white), a large tablecloth was cut into appropriate sizes to show off as much as possible of the lovely vintage needlework;

4) Cut both the under fabric and the over fabric the size to fit the purchased travel pillow, with a little less than one inch seam allowance added. Usual dimensions on these travel pillows are 15” x 20”, so cut the existing fabrics to allow for generous seam allowances, i.e., 31.5" x 41.5". (French seams create a more polished effect in its final appearance, so extra material for each seam was taken into account before cutting.) Hint: the under fabric should be of a contrasting color to enhance the cut-work shown on the vintage top fabric (in this case, a vintage peach pillow case was used for the under fabric);

5) You will likely need to piece together various parts of the vintage cloths in order to take the best advantage of the prior threadwork. I used lace seam binding to join two pieces of a tablecloth together to emphasize more of the cut work. Hint: ensure that the back of the pillow also incorporates as much as possible of the embroidery displayed on the vintage cloth.

6) Join the seams (french seaming, if possible) and complete the pillow case with simple straight stitching. An excellent tutorial on how to make french seams can be found here.

The finished pillow case with purchased travel pillow inside: (front view of the pillow case above, and back view at upper right)

More information about vintage fabrics can be garnered here. A reliable seller for vintage fabrics can be found here.

Embroidery with Vintage Apron Pockets, Watercolor Pencils and Crayons

A friend had given me an old apron with nice embroidery work on the edges and pockets. The linen was well worn, and the threads were thin, so they would not hold up well to further stitching. But I wanted to preserve the vintage handwork, embellish it a bit further and incorporate that pocket piece into something which I am currently sewing. More information was given about vintage cloth here in a previous post.

So I cut out those pockets from the old apron to save them, adding an iron-on stiffening product called Wonder Under to the back of the pockets.

Fast forward a couple of days. In order to also preserve some of the old handwork already on those two pockets, I decided to find a retro looking picture which would incorporate that prior flower stitching into my new project (see upper left side of woman's scarf in the photo below for the vintage handwork). The white embroidery originally there on the pocket is difficult to see in the photo.

The dilemma was that the apron pockets were white, and the new fabric onto which they would be sewn had no coordinating white in the fabric.

How about making a yellow background for the pocket? That's the ticket! So I tinted the white fabric pocket with a mixture of yellow and orange crayon overlays (just coloring the background like you would color on a piece of paper).

Giggleface is the most thorough source I found in searching out ways to tint fabrics with crayons. An excellent tutorial is given there and is also the website where I learned how to color the pink for breast cancer ribbons on old handerchiefs in a previous post.

That same site also had a cute Roaring 20's face of a woman which would work perfectly for the pocket application. The face of the woman came from a pattern from Vintage-Tinted-Linens.

I also colored the flapper's scarf with watercolor pencils and crayons, and rouged her cheeks with the same products. (Full credit for the application of the colors of threads and techniques goes to Giggleface.)

Then I made two faces of the woman on two separate pockets, similarly embroidered, for my future project. Stay tuned into this blogspot and the project will be shown when completed.

Look to needlenthread for a video library of hand embroidery instructions in case you need a refresher course in all the hundreds of stitches that can be employed in embroidery.

Curiously Old Patterns is an extensive site for embroidery patterns over 120 years old, and is in the public domain. These images can be used without fear of copyright infringement.

This may give you an idea to get out those needles and embroidery floss long packed away, and have fun embroidering on a new project! It is definitely a handcraft which is coming back into favor.

Silk Ribbon Embroidery - Covered Buttons

Thinking I would like to embellish a few vintage vests which I previously sewed, (referring to March Post), it seemed a natural fit to incorporate ribbon embroidery onto buttons.

This site: Purl Bee ...shows in great detail how to make a covered button. It is a very complete and easy-to-read tutorial which I highly recommed taking a look at. A picture of completed buttons is shown at right, taken from the Purl Bee citation.

Ribbon embroidery can be used for decorating articles of clothing, sachet bags, purses, etc. It certainly gives a distinctive touch to any lingerie, outer wear, or craft item.


On the left is a picture of a few silk ribbon birds which I made for a size 36 (7/8”) button cover. I thought they would be in proportion to the button, but after I put these onto the button covers, they were WAY too large.




Then I decided that what was needed was to make much smaller silk ribbon birds in order for them to fit onto individual button covers.

The smaller birds shown in the image (right side) can more deftly be wrapped around the button cover.

Using examples from the book An Encyclopedia of Ribbon Ebroidery by the American School of Needlework (1996), these replicas of American Goldfinches worked much better.

I will show a picture of the completed button once I get several more embroidered. But for now, the vest needs to be completed so these buttons can be added to it!