Christmas Pillow Covers (made with decorated hand towels!)

Making Pillow Covers is fun, because they add a lot of character to a room, and they can be changed for every season or holiday.  On black Friday I picked up a couple of throw pillows at Target for really cheap, because I have been wanting to make some Christmas pillow covers for a long time :)

I have had these 3 Crate and Barrel hand towels for a couple of years, but haven't actually used them as hand towels.   They are nice and thick, and a nice bright red color though, and the perfect size for making pillow covers!!

I got the idea for this tree pillow from this etsy shop here.  A few triangles of burlap are covered by smaller triangles of fabric. 

Then, I zig-zag stitched a quarter of an inch inside the fabric triangles.  The words I wrote with sharpie onto scraps of muslin fabric.  The muslin rectangles are doubled up, and sewn 1/4 inch inside the edge.  And a few buttons added some more texture. 

To turn it into a pillow cover, I sewed a simple pocket pillow case.  About 1/3 of the towel was folded over, right sides together, and sewn along the top and bottom edge. (I planned the decorations on my cover knowing that the right third would be folded over and end up as part of the back of the pillow.)

The extra towel was cut in half, and again put right sides together along the other edge - so that the finished edge was toward the middle.  I then sewed along the top, bottom and outer edge of that side.  This left a pocket opening to turn the case right side out and stuff the pillow in.  

Since I had 3 towels I was able to make 2 pillow covers that fit perfectly, and on the 2nd pillow cover I  sewed ric-rac and mitten and stocking shapes.  The words were done the same as the other pillow case, with sharpie and scraps of muslin. 

I love how they turned out!  After finishing this project, I highly suggest using hand towels to make pillow covers - and there are so many cute holiday ones out there!  ...it makes it so much easier to have the finished edges to work with, and the thick patterned fabric!

We're sure getting excited for Christmas around here!  Hope you are too :)