Pillow Talk: How to Turn Vintage Pillowcases into Napkins in Minutes + DIY Easter Place Cards

Last week, I found a pair of 60s / 70s (???) floral pillowcases at an antique store (Highland Row if you’re local) and fell in love with the pattern and the colors. They totally reminded me of the sheets my grandma used to have at her house when I was a kid and I just couldn’t resist buying them ($10 for the pair).

But I don’t really need any more pillowcases at this point, so we turned them into spring napkins that would be really cute for Easter (and beyond). Here’s how to revamp a simple pillowcase into a dinner napkin in just a few minutes.

Materials:

• vintage pillowcases
• sewing machine
• thread

Instructions:

1. Lay your pillowcase flat and with a ruler or measuring tape measure a 19″ x  21″ rectangle. We wanted our napkins to be 18″ x 20″ so we added an inch to each to be able to have room for each seem.
2. Cut out your shape. You should be left with two pieces of fabric but you will want to keep them together so that your finished napkin will have a nice weight.
3. Keeping your two pieces of fabric together fold one edge to be 1/4″ wide and pin and repeat on the opposite edge.
4. Sew each edge that you have pinned.
5. When you’re done sewing your first two edges fold those same sides again and repeat the process of pinning at 1/4″ and sewing so that you’re left with a completely finished edge on opposite sides of your fabric. (At this point you will have sewn the same edges twice.)
6. Now you’re going to repeat the exact same process on the other two opposing edges. When sewing these edges on your second round you might find that the corners or too thick to move under your machine’s foot. If you have that problem you can manually lift the foot to allow the fabric to pass through as it’s being sewn and drop the foot once you’ve made it past the thickest part.
7. Finish off by ironing your napkins.

P.S. In case you are wondering whether pillowcases actually make for a decent napkin…The answer is yes! Especially our double ply version. Cleaned up studio spills like a champ.

And for an extra Easter detail, here’s a quick Easter egg DIY…

Grab a brush pen and draw directly on the shell of a boiled egg. This could be a pattern, a phrase, a name, etc. Then, using a paper towel, dab off the extra ink (and pull straight back up so that the ink doesn’t smudge). This is a fun one to try for Easter place cards, with each of your guests names, etc.

Here’s a few more photos of both DIYs in action…

Sewing and lettering by Rachel Brewer
Photography by Amelia Tatnall
Styling by Brittni Mehlhoff

Think you’ll give this DIY a try? What do you think about reusing an old pillowcase in this way?