Custom Pillowcase Tutorial

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

A few weeks ago my sister asked me to make my niece a custom nap mat that needed to be the size of a pillowcase. I knew just what to do! I used to make these Custom Pillowcases by hand (!) but with my new obsession over my Cricut Maker and the rotary blade attachment I whipped this one up in under an hour! This would make a great gift for a kid birthday or a new mom to be… I also think adults would love one too. I mean, who doesn’t love something with their name on it?!

Here’s what you need:

a pillowcase (source for this one HERE)
fabric scraps (size will depend on the size of your pillow but I made sure mine were at least 6″ x 6″)
double sided interfacing
Cricut Maker
Cricut Rotary Blade
Cricut EasyPress 2
Sewing Machine

Choose some fabric scraps or pieces for the letters in the name and then you will want to decide on how tall the letters will be. I made my letters about 5.5″ tall so I just made sure all of my scraps were around 6″ x 6″.

Next, we need to iron the scraps. This is one thing that I love about the Easypress 2, it is a little larger/more square than an iron but just as easy and actually much quicker! You can read my honest review about the Cricut Easypress 2 HERE.

Then press a piece of fusible interfacing to the back of the fabric scraps. I like Wonder Under by Pellon. Be sure that the interfacing is a tad smaller than the fabric so interfacing doesn’t adhere to your EasyPress Mat. You will press it on for about 30 seconds and once it is cool, peel the back side of the interfacing off. You will know you did it right if the back now looks shiny.

Now here comes the fun part! We are going to cut the letters out using the Cricut Maker and the Rotary Blade attachment. I love using the Snap Mat Feature in the Cricut Design Space for this… if you haven’t used this feature yet you HAVE to try it, its pretty life changing!

Start out by placing as many fabric scraps (right sides up) as you can on your Fabric Cutting Mat and leave just a little room around the scraps.

When you open the app on your phone you can start by writing out the letters you are going to use for your pillowcase. My niece is named Collin so I plugged those letters in individually. Add each letter one at a time so you can move them freely in the next step.

Place your fabric mat with the scraps on it, on a flat surface. When you have the letters written out in your canvas choose “make it” in the bottom right hand corner and on that next screen that is when you will see the option for “Snap Mat”. Choose the Snap Mat and you will see a square that is shaped like your mat and your camera will open. Line your Cricut cutting mat up with the mat guidelines. The app will pick up the image and that will become your new background on your working canvas.

What is so cool about this is now you can place your letters EXACTLY where you want to on the fabric… you can line a pattern up perfectly or do fussy cut letters or quilt blocks, the options are endless! I was using pretty large letters so I had to split my fabric and letters into two groups. See how I was able to get a little part of everything on the blue floral fabric by moving the “C” around?! So cool!

Load your fabric into your Cricut Maker. Use the Rotary Blade and cut your letters out. Look at those sharp lines!!! Seriously so satisfying every time haha!

Find the center of your pillowcase and place your letters where you would like them. A trick I learned to mark the center of the pillowcase easily is to fold it in half then in half again and press that corner for a few seconds and it leaves a perfect little centered crease.

Once the letters are in place it is time to press them on to the pillowcase. The interfacing is already adhered to the back of our letters and the back of the interfacing is already pulled off (remember we did that before cutting the letters on the Cricut Machine). It’s always a good idea to preheat the surface a little before pressing anything on to it. I used the Jumbo EasyPress 2 for this part.

After pressing, your letters should be very secure at this point but after a few washes they would come right off so we are going to sew around the edge of each letter.