What a Sham!

Tweet

 Crush #2 needs shams to go with it. I wasn't sure how I was going to make them and had to think about that for a while. Here is what the center of the shams look like. It has the Crush feel but kind of makes a statement of its own.

 

 

 Obviously, they weren't big enough. I knew I wanted to surround the fancy center with solid sashings. There is green sashing on the left and right sides, then brown sashing around all sides, and then a larger black sashing around all sides. Yes, I like that idea!

 

The trickiest part of doing sashing is to get those stripes to line up evenly. The longer the sashing and the more skinny stripes you put next to each other, the more chance they have of becoming wobbly or going from attractive parallel stripes to some weird mathematical shape that has a greek name.

 

The way I get them straight is to rely heavily on my lined cutting mat. Using it to square things up and to assist in placing the next row of sashing will make it happen. No matter how perfectly you cut and stitch, your squares will not be perfectly square! Fabric moves and slips and shifts. Sometimes you have to take charge and make it do what you want!

 

 

Put your fingers on the ends of a strip and line up both sides along a line on your mat. When you put your next strip down, you can place it on the correct marking all the way across your piece.

 

This black strip below is lined up on the 1-1/2" mark. That is where it was pinned down all the way across the brown sashing. It didn't matter if the brown edge matched the entire way since the brown sash edges didn't line up on that line. Because the inner edge of the brown was lined up correctly, the outer edge will line up correctly.

 

 

 

 

Sew and then press those seams open to reveal the beautifully even sashing. (sorry for the blur)

 

 

 

Keep adding as many strips as you want. This method works for any length you sew on. When it's all done, you have something that looks really nice! These Crush shams will be backed with a blue fabric with the opening down the center. Insert pillows and enjoy!