I often manage to leave a pillow behind when I stay with my grandkids and my pillows are always very popular as they figure out who gets to keep grandma's pillow.

With this thought in mind, I decided to give the grandkids, and their parents, a new pillow and pillowcase for Christmas.

Easy enough!  A stack of new, fluffy pillows!  But can I say that a car fills up pretty fast with a bunch of pillows stuffed into it.

Now for the pillow cases.   hmmm....  They should be fun....  they should be individualized....  and brrrrr, they should be flannel.

But, honestly, I have been frustrated with pillowcases that didn't ever seem to fit correctly and that the pillows would often slide out. 

Necessity is the mother of invention
and even though I have seen pillowcase with tuck flaps somewhere, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I combined many of the pillowcase methods I knew well and created this pillowcase that, for me, fits well and stays on the pillow.

The new pillowcases will fit more snugly and have a generous tuck flap to keep the pillows IN the pillowcases.

I dug through my flannel stash (which is always the first place I shop) and found some interesting ideas for them....  and while I was digging, I decided to make some for the Denver nephews and niece.

AND, since this would be the last real project of 2015, I decided to finish off some random spools of thread so the empties could be added to my yearly count of emptied thread spools.

I started 15 pillowcases during a UFO class with friends and finished them during a movie marathon.

I am very happy with the results.