Sew a Pillow with Piping Tutorial

I know I have sewed a million pillows and never added piping.  I was afraid!  Not anymore.  I am pleased to say I completed my first pillow.  I thought I would do a complete tutorial for all the other DIYers afraid of attempting pillow piping.

You are going to need for a 20" pillow
20" pillow insert
1 yard of fabric
84" of welting
Matching thread
Sewing machine

First select your fabric.  I found this geometric trellis fabric at a local fabric store.  It is a heavy weight fabric and probably not something I suggest for your first time.  With all of the layers it was tough to sew the last piece on straight.  I wanted to make a set of two - 20" pillows for our sofa in the family room.  As I said in my previous pillow tutorial - I always make the pillow cover smaller than the insert so the pillow looks full.  I subtract and inch on each side to do this.  But then you need to allow for a half inch seam on each size so the fabric ends up being the same size as the insert - 20" by 20".  I also cut at the same time an 82" long by 1.5" fabric to cover the welting.  If you don't have enough length you will need to sew two or more pieces together.

The first step is to sew the fabric around the welting.  I decided to have the piping on my pillow match the pillow fabric but it would also be cute to have a coordinating but different fabric for the piping too.  Pin the fabric around the welting with the right side out. 

Then sew as close to the welt as possible with a zipper foot on the sewing machine all the way down the length of the fabric and welting. 

Then with one of the pieces of pillow fabric right side up you are going to pin the welting around the pillow with the welting on the inside.  Start at the middle of the bottom and work your way around the edge keeping your welting fabric edge and the pillow fabric edge even. 

At the corners you will need to cut a few snips out of the welting fabric to turn the corner smooth.  Then sew on the welting with the same zipper foot staying on the same stitching as before.  Start at the bottom and work your way around.  When you get to the bottom you will need to cross the ends over each other and sew to keep them from fraying. 

When you get done it should look like this.  Last step is to sew on the back.  Place the last piece of fabric wrong side up and pin it all the way around.  Sew the top piece on as close to the edge of the welting as possible.  Leave about 10" open at the bottom to stuff the pillow.  Insert the pillow and then hand stitch the bottom closed. 

The end result!  Isn't it pretty? It's not perfect but not too bad for the first try.  Now you can make professional and expensive looking pillows for a lot less.  It took me a few hours to do my first one.  But now that I know the process it will go much quicker the next time.

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