Sidetracked by pillowcases

I continued to make progress on the embroidered caftan until this week.  With the heat we are getting so early this spring I decided that it is a higher priority to make my husband a linen pillowcase to go with his linen sheet.  One of my sons has taken over the table I use for my sewing machine, so I decided that I'd just hand stitch the pillow case since that would also allow me to work on it during the drive to and from work.  I cut it out at home a couple evenings ago, using an old pillowcase as my 'pattern'.  All the rest of the work has been done in the car.

First I evened up the edge of the fabric that had been cut unevenly in the originally purchased fabric.  The cutters at the fabric store don't seem to care so much about such things.  I prefer to have square edges, so I pulled any threads that didn't go entirely across the end.  Then I finger pressed about 1/2 inch to turn under the make the doubled open edge facing, enclosing the cut edge.  Folded that over so there was a nice, maybe 4 inches, doubled area, pinned it in place and started stitching.

I did a running lock stitch across the folded side, not enough to be top stitched, but very close to the fold.  Once that facing had been finished I pinned the raw edges wrong sides together, so I can make a sort of thickish French seam enclosing the cut edges.  I didn't bother to cut off the selvedge, so I am making the stitching line about 1/2 inch from the edge, so as not to stitch in the selvedge.  After the edges are stitched together I'll finger press the seam, fold it inside out, repin and stitch the final seam.  Another day or so should finish it.

It would be much faster if I was doing this on the machine, or when not in a moving car, but that's OK.  I'm making great progress and finishing something that I wouldn't even have really started if not for the decision to make it by hand.