Bolster Pillow DIY
As part of my beginner sewing series I decided to try my hand at making a bolster pillow with piping on the edge for our bedroom. We have a king size bed in this house and I cant seem to find anything that is large enough for such a huge bed. All of the pillows I find are way to small so that got me planning to make something that fit the proportions of the bed. Bolster pillows are definitely having a moment in interior design. I see XL bolster pillows on couches and beds and mini ones on chairs. You can do a lot of different styles with a bolster pillow. Some have a button in the center at each end. Other bolsters are more simple with stitching connecting the body and ends together. The one Im making is I think a middle ground of those two styles. I wanted to learn piping as well in the project. I also made a video tutorial about making the pillow if video is also your favorite way to learn.
The Fabric
I spend a good long while on the design of this fabric. It took me months of brainstorming and pondering to come up with a design that gave me to warmth and colors I wanted with a pattern design that matches our style. I designed a busy floral pattern with a deep almost black dark blue background and green, gold and the surprising pop of red florals sprinkled throughout.
I wanted a texture heavy pattern design because the rest of our room is very cream and tan. The walls are an off white and our bedding is a beige. This room is going through a few transitions but I knew I wanted to add color with this bolster pillow. I ordered this design on a yard of Cotton Poplin fabric and the pipping from my local JoAnne store.
Pillow Design
I found a 6x28 inch insert off of amazon. They have a lot of size options which was nice to be able to see how different options looked. Once the insert and fabric arrived I laid down the insert on the fabric to figure out how I wanted to pattern to lay when it all came together. I ended up liking the design on an angel more than straight across it also hid the repeat better on such a long pillow. I added a 1/2 inch seam allowance to on the two end pieces and enough fabric to wrap around the insert. I debated whether to use a regular zip or an invisible zipper. In the end I decided on a regular zip that closely matched the color of the fabric. I used some of the scrap fabric to create the pipping.
Sew Everything Together
I made this bolster in three different parts. First I made the body and attached the zipper leaving enough fabric on each end to be able to sew the end pieces together. Then I sewed the piping. Pipping is pretty easy especially if you have a zipper foot so that you can sew as close to the pipping as possible. After the pipping is done I attached it to each end pieces lining up ends of the pipping together folding one into the other making a clean continues circle. Once the pipping is attached its time to attach the end pieces to the of the pillow. While attaching the end pieces to the body I made sure to sew over the thread that attached the pipping to the end pieces so that there are not double thread lines on the pillow. Creating a clean look on the finished bolster pillow.
What video here for full tutorial of the making of this bolster pillow