How to Make a Simple Patchwork Pillow Sham

This fun tutorial is brought to you by my friend, Isabel Wilder of Gypsy Tailor! Isabel is a talented sewist with tons of experience. You can find her at gypsytailor.com and on Instagram @gypsytailor. Click here to read all about her and her unique story!

This tutorial will walk you through every step of how to create a patchwork pillow sham! this tutorial uses quilt blocks from my free Truckee Quilt Pattern, which you can get here.

Finished size pillow sham: 

My pillow shams were 35 ¼” by 21” (89.5 cm x 53.3 cm) This size also looks good on a queen or king size bed. But my inserts were standard size pillows, not king size pillows.

This pillowcase will be sewn as an envelope pillowcase. No zippers or buttons! I really like sewing most of my pillowcases in this way.

Materials Needed:

• You need 4 blocks of the Trucke Quilt for one regular size pillow sham (25.5 x 19 inches) But this also will depend how you would like to place the quilt blocks over the pillow sham so take that into consideration. To give you an idea I used the baby quilt size and after making two pillow shams I have 2 blocks left. 
• Matching fabric for the border strip (¾ - 1 yard for two pillow shams if cutting the strips in 4 pieces )  I cut my border in a long strip 3 ¼ yards by 3 ½”. 
• Backing fabric to place under the 4 blocks. This can be quilt batting, fusible fleece or just cotton.  I used cotton. 
• Fabric for the back of the pillowcase. (1 ¼ yard for two pillow shams)
• Light interfacing like PLF36 (this will be for the border trim)
• Optional: bias tape or piping to decorate.  

Sewing steps: 

Place the Truckee Quilt blocks over a pillow to determine if 4 blocks will be enough to cover most of your pillow.  If you are working with a bigger pillow, add more blocks as necessary. I used 4 blocks and decided to place the smaller patchwork rectangles in the middle. On the outer edges of the sham, only a little bit of the smaller rectangles is visible. This way, my pillow shams are a little bigger than a regular size pillow sham, so they look better in our king size bed.  

Sew your blocks together in any way you decide in order to get a big rectangle of (4) Truckee quilt blocks. I call it a “Truckee Quilt Rectangle”.  This will be the front panel of the pillow sham.

In this picture, I folded in the extra rectangles on the sides. I ended up using the extra rectangles on the side, so my pillow shams could work for a king size bed. 

Cut a piece of cotton or quilt batting 1/2 “ bigger all around than your TQR (Truckee Quilt Rectangle) and place it under it.  Pin the two layers together by working on a table or floor to make sure both layers are flat. 

Quilt the patchwork pillow sham front panel by machine or by hand as desired.  I quilted by stitching a quarter inch away on both sides of each vertical patchwork seam. 

Place your quilted panel on a cutting mat.  Using a ruler and rotary cutter, cut around it to even up the rectangle. If you do not have a cutting mat, you can mark the new lines all around and cut the uneven edges with scissors. 

I basted all around my patchwork pillow sham panel to make it easier when joining it to the border trim. Just go around the rectangle and do long stitches to keep both layers together on the edges. It will make your life easier; I promise! 

I added a border to my pillow sham because I thought it would look prettier with a solid color around it, and I needed a border at the top and bottom to fit the pillow sham insert.  But you can skip this step and mitering corners (below) if you just would like to add more blocks to get to a desired pillow sham measurement.

The border I used around the pillow sham measured in total: 3 ¼ yards long by 3 ½” wide (this includes seam allowance). I cut my trim in one length along the selvage but you can cut it along the width of the fabric in horizontal segments of 3 ½” x width of fabric. 

• Cut the Interfacing and Fuse:

Cut a piece of interfacing the same measurement as the sham border.  This is optional but the weight of a light interfacing will add a better finish and look to your patchwork pillow sham border, so I recommend it. Fuse the interfacing to the back of the trim using an iron. 

• Serging:

This step is optional.  If you have a serger, this is a great time to use it, but if you do not, you can zigzag stitch around the edges with your domestic sewing machine or bind the edges. I added this step here because I think it will be easier to do it now than later. However, you can definitely wait until the trim and the patchwork pillow panel are joined.  But I found it to be a bit tricky to serge close to the corners after the pieces are joined, so I think doing it separately is best. 

Serge (or zigzag stitch) one side of the long border, or serge one side of all the pieces for the border (depending how you cut the border, if done in one long piece or many shorter ones) Also serge around the patchwork pillow panel. 

Sewing the border to the pillow sham panel:

RST, pin the border piece to one of the long sides of the pillow sham panel. Make sure that the finished (serged or zigzag) edge of the border is even with the edge of the pillow sham panel. Start at one corner, leaving 2 ½” of the border hanging. Sew it with a ¼” seam allowance from corner to corner and leave another 2 ½” of overhang at the other end. If you are working with a border cut in 4 pieces, you can repeat this step on all 4 sides.  If you are working with one long, continuous border piece like I did, then the sewing goes: sew trim, miter corner, sew trim, miter corner, until 4 sides are done. 

I worked with one long, continuous border piece, so every time I got to a corner, I had to fold the trim over itself to find the diagonal seam to create the mitered corner.

If you are working with a border cut in pieces, you will have two hanging pieces on each corner. That is basically the only difference. In the photo above, I had these extra hanging trims only in my last corner. 

So how to miter corners? 

Here are the written steps for how to miter the corners of your patchwork pillow sham:

Once your border is stitched on one side pillow panel, from one corner to the next corner, then bring it to the right side, so the border is facing you. Then bring the rest of the border (in my case) or (bring the corner of the other trim over the first side trim) place the trim over it and fold it under at the corner to create a new seam that goes diagonally; but keep in consideration that a ¼” will be needed on the border for the other side of the pillowcase. So when you create this corner, make sure you see that the extra ¼” seam allowance is there.  

Press this new fold with your fingers, and turn the trim to the wrong side and mark on the pressed line with a pencil so you can see it. This is the stitching line where you will sew next. After you sew the new seam at an angle, then it is time to keep stitching the trim to the next side of the pillow sham panel. You will start sewing right at the point where the angle line starts and at ¼” from the edge.  Repeat in each corner until you close all four corners. 

When you are creating the fold for the mitered corners, remember to account for the amount of seam allowance you will need on the border that will be sewn on the following side of the pillow sham, as shown in the last picture. 

Pressing is one of my favorite parts of the sewing process, because after pressing, the seams flat and your project looks neat and crisp. Make sure to take a bit of time to press around your stitched seams. I finished the inside of the mitered corner with a serger, but you can zigzag stitch the edge as another option for enclosing the raw edge. 

Topstitching:

At this point, the trim can be topstitched.  Again, this is optional, but I think it looks nice to have a stitch there.  You can play with a contrasting thread too!  I topstitched at ⅜” from the edge. 

Topstitching can also be done at the very end. It all depends on what kind of look you would like for your pillow sham.  If you topstitch it at this point, then the look will be loose around the insert.  If you topstitch it at the end after assembling the whole pillow sham, then the look will be a tighter fit around the insert pillow. Just remember to make sure your insert will fit inside if you do a topstitch at the end. 

Another thing to consider is that if the fit is too tight, then the seams of the front pillow sham panel will be more stressed and can come apart over time as the pillows are used. 

Now the entire front of the patchwork pillow sham is ready for the back pieces of the pillow sham to be sewn onto it. 

Finishing the Pillow Sham

•   Cut the Back Pieces:

Cut two back pieces for the pillow sham. These pieces are bigger than the half of your front pillow sham. So they can overlap in the back creating an opening to slide the insert pillow. I usually cut them 5 -7” wider than the half of my front piece.

• Sewing:

2. Create a fold to one of the back pieces. Fold around 3” to 3 ½” and iron well to crease this fold. 

3. Now place the right sides together: the front pillow sham and the back side that has the fold.  Let the edge of the fold go over the centerline about 3” and pin at the top and bottom.

4. Now place the other back side on the other side over the wrong side of the pillow sham and over the back side that has the fold. Letting this piece to just go beyond the centerline creates a good overlap so when the insert goes in there will not be a gap that can be seen.