Pillowcase Bag: a sort of tutorial

Yesterday, on a whim, I set out to make the pillowcase bag that I included in my Crafty To Do List. Martha has lots of great ideas, but her instructions leave something to be desired. I decided to take a few pictures and videos to make it easier for anyone else who wants to make one. It is really quite easy and took me about 45 minutes start to finish.

Start with a pretty pillowcase spread out flat on your cutting mat. Cut 1/4 inch off the bottom (the closed end)

Next you are going to cut the pillowcase in half diagonally - doesn't matter which diagonal, just pick one.

This is the part that kind of confused me. You are going to fold over and pin the 4 diagonal cut edges. Martha suggests a double fold of 1/4 inch, but that is too difficult and not really necessary so I just did one fold of about 1/2 inch. You can see two of my edges in the above picture and I did the same thing to the diagonal edges of the other half.

Sew all four hems. Again you are sewing the diagonal edges here.

After all four edges are hemmed you are going to place one half inside the other. This is sort of confusing so here is a video to assist.

is that clear? i hope so.

As I mentioned in the video you are now going to sew along the outside diagonal edges. This will rejoin the two halves. You can see above that the two are joined. You have to do this once on the front of the bag and again on the back outside diagonal edge.

This video reinforces the previous step and also the last few steps. 1. Turn the bag inside out and sew along the bottom - this closes up the bottom of the bag so your stuff doesn't fall out! 2. Turn it right side out again and knot the top.

Go places with your new bag! I think this turned out cute, but I'm not as in love as I'd hoped to be. Jess suggested some ric-rac...what do you guys think??