My first posting is about making pillows. Not everything you ever needed to know about making pillows, but how to make the back of a pillow with a clean, neat zipper. My photos aren't the best, but they will do for now.

Supplies:

• Fabric a few inches larger than the pillow front
• Plastic zipper a few inches longer than the piece of fabric
• Sewing machine with zipper foot
• Basic sewing supplies: pins, thread, scissors, etc

Cut your fabric into two pieces. One half should be about 3 or 4 inches wide and the other is what is left.


Layout and pin together as below:


Keeping the zipper fully open and the zip past the left side of the fabric, sew the zipper to the fabric--close to the cut edge.

With the under side of the fabric up, create a fold to just cover the teeth of the zipper and pin in place. Stitch close to the teeth. It will look like this:

Ignoring my poor sewing technique and lack of selecting an appropriate thread color, you have finished the first side of the pillow bottom and it will look like below:

Now, you will start on the larger piece of fabric. And the procedures are the same. Here is the top half pinned and ready for sewing:

And after sewing:

Now, all you have to do is place the pillow front and back together and stitch around the perimeter of the front---make sure that your zipper pull is toward the center and that the edge where the zipper opens is lined up in a closed position.

Here is the pillow all ready for the final sewing. Sorry, you'll have to wait a day or two to see it completed. I am worn out.