bolster pillow tutorial

The hubs wanted one of these to add to the mountain of pillows on our bed.

What I used was:
-some extra fabric I had lying around (that actually is the same fabric as our headboard).
-extra piping I had (I know not many people have extra piping & it can be pricey, so always remember to at least use a JoAnn's coupon!).
-and an old, flat pillow.

Here are the instructions:

I used an old, flat pillow we had & rolled it up really tight, for the inside of the pillow.
Measure and cut the fabric to the size you need.
Make sure to have extra fabric for the piping, or you can use a different fabric if you want.

The trickiest part is the piping, but once you learn to do it you'll want to do piping on everything!

Take 2" wide x the length of your main piece of fabric (that will wrap around the pillow) & placed the piping directly in the center of the fabric, wrap the fabric around the piping & sew as close as you possibly can, using your zipper foot. Leave a bit of extra fabric on the end so you can wrap & tuck it.

Like so.This was extra piping from the chair I recovered.

So next you will get your piping and lay it on the side of your fabric so both right sides of your fabric are facing each other & sew, again close to the piping. (I hope that makes sense!)

Next wrap your main piece of fabric in the tube position to fit with your piping & stuffing, so it would almost be complete-you're just missing the ends. Sew the right sides of the fabric together, so you'll basically have a tube, where all the stuffing (or my old pillow rolled up) would go.

Another tricky part is finishing up the ends. This one can take some time.
You'll want to cut out more of the fabric in circles so they will cover each end of your pillow.
I found it was easiest to trace a bowl that was just bigger than the ends of my pillow.

The first end you decide to do is the easier one. You can flip your pillow casing inside out & sew it on, in a circle. Just do it slowly and make sure you are leaving a little extra room so it will bow out a little bit. Try to sew close to the pipping again. Once you start you'll know what I mean.

If you are squishing an old pillow inside of it now you stuff it in. You might need the help of a muscular man to get it just perfectly snug (I did!). If you are going to be using stuffing you can sew half of the circle on, sort of the same way you did before but with the circle flapped open & sew half. Then stuff.

When you have it stuffed and sewed as much as you can you have to sew the rest by hand.
I know, nobody likes doing that, but SORRY. If you want it to match the other side it's easiest to do it by hand.

And then you will have your piped bolster pillow!
(sorry I don't have more pictures! I don't do the best job at taking picture throughout the process, I'll get better!)