Embroidering on Pillowcases

Embroidered pillowcases add a sweet, dreamy look to your bedroom. Add light and airy machine embroidery to your pillowcases using these tips for excellent results.

Project Needs & Notes:

- Pillowcase
- Medium-weight (2.5 ounce) cutaway stabilizer;
  tear-away stabilizer can also be used
- Air-erase pen for marking
- Seam ripper
- Pins

Designs featured in this tutorial and video are:

L3328, Always Kiss Me Goodnight Border (Vintage)
D2537, Fleur de Flames Border (Blackwork)
K7850, Blooming March Border (Vintage)
J8007, Blooming Morning Glory Border (Vintage)
E9930, Sweet Dreams Kitty Spray (Vintage)

Pillowcases are usually made out of percale, which is a light cotton.

Choose very simple and open embroidery designs, such as toile or vintage stitch. Those types of designs work best on percale.

A template, or printout of a design, is an excellent tool to help with placement.

Print a template of the design from your embroidery software. If you do not have embroidery software, Wilcom's TrueSizer is a free program to use.

Arrange the template on the pillowcase. After you have it positioned where you want to stitch the design, mark the center point and the vertical and horizontal axis lines.

Designs are usually placed right on the edge, and oftentimes there is a hem.

Avoid embroidering through two layers of fabric, because that will result in the fabric puckering.

Use a seam ripper to open the seam.

Cutaway stabilizer will bring the best results when embroidering on percale. But some percale is very light and transparent, and the cutaway stabilizer can show through.

Use a soft cutaway stabilizer, like Floriani's No-Show Mesh.

Or, use a soft and pliable tear-away stabilizer, like Sulky Soft 'n Sheer.

Hoop the pillowcase with the stabilizer.

Roll the excess up and out of the way, and clip it; hair clips work well for this.

Embroider the design. A size 11 or 75/11 embroidery needle works very well on percale.

After embroidering, cut or tear the excess stabilizer away.

Fold the fabric back for the hem, and pin in place.

Sew up the seam.

And you'll have dreamy results!

Percale is a very light fabric, and even if you use the lightest embroidery designs, you may see wrinkling around the stitches when taking the pillowcases out of the dryer.

Press with a hot, dry iron, and a pressing cloth. Don't use steam, as steam will make the wrinkling worse.

Bring a beautiful look to your bed linens with light and airy embroidery. Sweet dreams!