How to change old pillow backings - the easy way!

Hello everyone! Today I want to share with you a quick and easy way to change pillow backings. Because sometimes you have a wonderful old pillow that you love and want to keep, but that needs a little care and attention, but you don't have a lot of time to work on it.

 

When we got married, my husband and I got a rug and three matching pillows for our living room, in this pattern:

 

A little over twelve years later, the rug and the front of the pillows are still in great condition (though I have to wash them regularly because they have a white background which does not last white very long with the kids hanging around). But the pillow backings, for some reason, did not survive the test of time. You can't see it very well below (I took this photo at night), but they were stained (stains that no amount of washing was able to remove), the fabric was damaged in places and two of the three zippers were no longer working. 

 

At first, I thought about replacing both the pillows and the rug (to same myself the trouble of having to wash them regularly), but I still like them and I couldn't really justify the cost. So I started looking for a quick and easy way to replace the pillow backings. Mostly, I wanted to keep the covers opening and closing with a zipper, but I didn't want the hassle of having to sew on three zippers.

The solution? Three simple pillow covers from Ikea, in a fabric very similar to the original one, and with zippers already sewn!

These pillow covers were a bit larger than my original ones, but here's what I did: 

First I separated the pillow fronts from their original backings:

Then I measured and decided how much the Ikea covers needed to be reduced and, with those covers turned inside out, I sewed two of the sides down to the right size, making sure the zipper remained where I wanted it:

 

I cut off the excess fabric...

...turned inside out and hand sewed the original pillow fronts to the front of the Ikea pillow covers (so now the pillow covers actually have two fronts, but one of them is hidden underneath the other. An the back of my pillows is once again presentable:

Even with the hand sewing, replacing the pillow backings was much easier than having to cut fabric, sew on zippers and then sew front and back of the pillows together. And if I had managed to find new pillow covers in the right size, it would have been even easier!

Thank you for stopping by, and happy Tuesday!