Personalized Pillow Case

Last Thursday my daughter got invited to a Saturday birthday party. I always make a gift for the birthday boy/girl and this time was no different. We had a lot going on, so I needed to come up with a quick gift idea. Right away I thought of embroidering the child's name on something pre-made. Inspiration struck and I purchased a package of 2 pillowcases for just under $5.

After washing, I opened up the turned over edge of the pillowcase on one side with a seam ripper. Then I hooped with stabilizer and pinned some water soluble stabilizer on top. I picked out a nice contrasting color and set up my machine to stitch out the name.

When the name was stitched out, I removed the top stabilizer and took the pillowcase out of the hoop. Then I stitched the turned under edge back into it's original position, which covered up the back of the stitching.

The pillow cases came in a little drawstring bag, which I decided to add the first initial to. After turning the bag inside-out, I placed 2 safety pins on each side of the area that I wanted to open up with a seam ripper. The pins help prevent the stitching from opening up even further. Since the bag wasn't very big and the opening didn't allow much room to embroider, I used my smallest hoop. After stitching and removing the hoop/stabilizer, I serged the opening of the bag closed and then stitched straight seam.

I didn't do a very good job of lining up my hoop, so the N was not centered. I also encountered a little puckering around the name on the pillowcase, but I don't think they noticed or cared. The birthday girl was thrilled to have something with her name on it. Her mother thought it was a really neat gift.

I have the other pillowcase that I can personalize for the next party gift or keep.