Pillow Shams to match quilt
 

I plan on making pillow shams and a bed skirt to match my quilt. I want to piece the front of the sham with a variation of the quilt pattern. Quilt is a 9 patch and rail fence pattern. I may do Goose in the Pond or something similar. I was hoping to make an envelope sham. How do you finish the back (inside) of the pieced front of the sham? I searched the quilting board and couldn't find any thread on this topic. I have made envelope pillow covers, but not quite sure how to do a pieced top. I don't really want to quilt it unless necessary. Could I use some kind of fusible interface or batting? Thanks in advance for your help.

I really don't know what you are asking. But, the regular shams I have had in the past have serged hems inside. If you don't have one, you could make them a French seam style. It the seams are exposed and you are wanting to enclose them, you could use a knit iron on interfacing. Utube has some good information there. Perhaps there is something there to help.

I just made shams for my bed to match the king size quilt I made. You just make the sham like a quilt. I used muslin on the back since it is inside and will never be seen. I would think you would want to SID at the minimum on the pieced front.

I use flannel and then a backing on the pieced top and quilt it a bit for strength and stability. Then I just treat this sandwich as the front of the sham. I think it goes better with the quilted if it's quilted in a similar fashion.

I agree with ekuw. I would SITD at a minimum.

I also use a slippery lining, like garment lining or rip stop nylon. I find that the pillow fills the sham better this way. An alternative is to use one of those satin zipper pillow protectors.

Great tip! I'll remember that for next time :-)

I quilted it the same as the quilt. You could probably do less but I wanted it to look the same. I used muslin on the back (inside) of the front panel and coordinating fabric on the back. I overlap opening about 5 inches on back. I made flanges all around like wide sashing to center the blocks on the sham.

That's a great idea! I'm definitely going to try that.

Whenever I have made matching shams I do quilt the top part of them. I think you will find with no quilting you will have a wrinkled mess with every washing, at least that has been my experience with under quilted items like placemats or the one time I had to wash a quilt top prior to quilting. Additionally I think you will be much happier with the finished look with, at the very least SITD quilting. Shams are so easy to quilt because they are smaller and even an all over cross hatch looks good.

I just made two shams to match a quilt I'd made for my son - I pieced add'l matching blocks, fused them onto Pellon 987F fusible fleece, used light muslin to back the quilted sham top and quilted them to match the quilt. I think using some sort of batting and quilting the sham top makes it look as finished as the actual quilt. Probably not what everyone would do but it worked out great for me :)

Hope that's helpful!

Christine