Pillow Sham Tutorial Question

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

I am a beginner sewer and have become so inspired by the excellent tutorials on this site.  I would like to attempt to sew my first pillow sham as instructed in the “How to Make a Flower Pillow Sham” tutorial.

 

Because I am still so new and don’t want to make any mistakes I just want to check the measurements for the 2 back panels before I cut my fabric.  The instructions say to cut two 9 1/2″ x 13″.  I understand the 13″ dimension, but not so much the other so I believe I am not understanding something correctly.  The 9 1/2″ is for half of the  length (6 1/2″) + 2″ for overlapping + 1/2 for seam allowance + 1″ for hem.  When I add those up I get 10″ so I must be missing something.  If you could please help me out I would really appreciate it.  I’m hoping to make a couple of different sizes of shams, so figuring this out is important so that I don’t botch this project.

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

Don’t worry, you won’t botch it.  🙂  The measurements are correct.  9 1/2″ minus the 1 1/2″ (for seam allowance and hem) is 8″.  There are two sides to the back so 8 + 8 is 16″.  It’s a 12″ pillow so that means you have 4″ extra if you subtract the 16″.   Divide that by the 2 sides means that each side is going to overlap by 2″.  Good luck and I’d love to see a picture when you finish. 🙂

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