Pillow Talk

Today’s tutorial is how to make a felt appliqué pillow cover with piping! You will need to gather up the following materials:

• Pillow form
• Enough fabric to cover front and back, as well as an additional half of your back
• A package of piping
• Felt
• Fabric glue (Elmer’s glue can also work)
• Thread
• Sewing machine

Step 1: Cut fabric

Measure your pillow form for height and width. Cut out the front of you pillow by adding 2” to both sides. This pillow form is 12” X 16” so we will cut 14” X 18”.



For the back, cut out two pieces: one that is one half the width (for this pillow it would be 9”X 14”) and one piece that is three quarters the width (about 14”X 14”).

Step 2: Making the back

Press under one width side per back piece a half inch. Then press under again one inch. Sew edges with a 5/8 seam. Put aside.


Step 3: Making your Felt appliqué design

We wanted to make a sock monkey design, so we decided to trace the outline of the actual sock monkey because we really liked the size of the monkey on the pillow. This gave us our basic shape. We then added detail with felt shapes. Using fabric glue (if you don’t have any fabric glue, Elmer’s glue can also work. Apply very sparingly to avoid glue spots) Let glue dry (a good half hour should do! Before sewing)




Once glue is dried, sew down felt on all edges using an interesting color of thread with your sewing machine.

Step 4: Piping

Lay out your piping on the right side of your front piece a half-inch from the edge. Pin on flat side of piping facing the point towards you as you pin. Pin corners by pinching the piping to form a corner. Pin as shown:


Using a zipper foot on your machine, carefully sew piping down by sewing on the flat side. Take out pins as you move along the piping.


Step 5” Putting it all Together

Lay front side right side up and arrange both back pieces to match edges of the front so right sides are together. Your back pieces will over lap. Pin pieces together and sew. Follow along the piping line as you sew being careful not to sew over the round part of the piping. You should be sewing on the outside edge of the piping.



Final Step: Turn pillow case inside out and slip pillow form in between the two back pieces and there you go! Your own appliqué pillow form. Happy Sewing!