Pallet for Home: Pillow Bed Tutorial

Pillow Bed Tutorial

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

My friend asked me to make 5 of these Pillow Beds for her for Christmas gifts.

We scoured the internet for a good tutorial and came up empty.

I came up with this pattern and it's super easy.

All you need to know is how to measure, cut, and sew a straight line.

Easy Peasy!

First you need to get a twin sheet. You can do it with fabric but it will cost you a ton more and the sheet is the perfect size. My friend bought 5 different sheets so the photos are of a few different ones, but the process is exactly the same.

I just assembly lined them.

I would suggest washing and drying your sheets before cutting.

I didn't and had to iron all of them before final assembly.

Lay out your fabric. You need a piece that measures 65 inches by 76 inches. The great thing about the sheet is that it's already hemmed at 65 inches. That will totally save time hemming the sides.

She bought standard pillows to fill the bed, so you can see the dimentions. Since I want them to be tight and full, I'm going to make the finished size smaller than the printed pillow size.
Trust me. This will turn out awesome.

This is how I got the 65 inches. You want the fabric to overlap in the back to keep the pillow snug, but still allow you to take out the pillow in case the bed needs to be washed.

You can see the hemmed finished sheet is exactly the width we need.

I cut off the top cuff from the sheet. Then measure the total length from here.

To get the length, I measured 19 inches for the pillow height and times that by 4 since there are 4 pillows in each bed. for a total of 76 inches. Trim the length of the sheet to 76 inches.

I marked the sheet in several places at 76 inches then cut along the line to make sure the length stayed straight.

Now the bottom edge is cut off, I have some scrap left. I want to add a stripe to the bed so I cut about 4 inches of the width of the fabric. I usually cut about 6-10 inches, then fold up the strip and use that as my cutting guide, moving the strip up the fabric as I cut. It's an easy way to keep things mostly straight and I don't have to get out my quilting grid.

At this point you can add any embellishment you want to the large sheet piece. I'm just adding one stripe. Polka dots would be fun too or a monogram. Do any embellishment now because it will be next to impossible once you have the bed assembled.

Next I ironed the heck out of all of it.
The strips I folded over the edges like shown. This will make adding them easy.

Pin the stripes in place and stitch down either side. I placed them about 6 inches from the top of the main piece.

Now lay out the sheet right side up. I layed my pillow in the center to decide how wide the opening needs to be. I measured 25 inches width for the pillow. Pin the fabric at 0 and at 25. I eyeballed where center was and measured the 25 inches there.

This is a better picture of where to place the tape measure. Late afternoon sun shining on my work.

Fold over one side of the fabric at the pin at 0 all the way down, keeping everything flat. Do the same with the other side, folding at the 25 inch pin. This creates your envelope closure. Pin in place.

Serge or Zig-zag the ends closed. Then turn right side out.

Lay out the bed making sure everything is nice and flat, no wrinkles or puckers.
Now mark the fabric at 18.5 inches, 37.5 inches, and 56.5 inches like shown.
I put several pins along each stitch line to hold everything in place and make sewing a straight line easy.
Sew the lines, back stitching at the folded over piece to keep it secure.

Stuff your pillows inside and you're done!
Here are the other color combinations of beds I made for my friend.
All sheets are thanks to Walmart at $4.50 a piece.
Not to bad!
Plus the color combinations are super cute!