Tips for Making a Box Cushion Cover with Piping

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Remember the window seat that I recently made? As promised, here is the tutorial Tips for Making a Box Cushion Cover with Piping. I had never made one of these box cushion covers before but it was really rather easy.

Tips & Steps for Making a Box Cushion Cover with Piping

Step 1 – Fabric

Tip #1 Use “unconventional” fabric

The first thing I did was find the fabric. While I was at HomeGoods buying the pillows and throws, I went back to the bathroom accessories aisle and looked through the shower curtains. Shower curtains and tablecloths are two excellent fabric sources. I found a shower curtain that I liked and luckily there were two of them.

The first thing I did was to open up the shower curtain and place the cushion over it to be sure it was big enough. It certainly was. At first I thought I could get away with one shower curtain but in the end I couldn’t.

But there was plenty of fabric so I could just trim away the hemmed edges instead of opening up the hems. This was a huge time saver.

The next step was to make the piping. (While I did have fabric left over, there wasn’t enough to make the piping. Instead I bought solid gray in a heavy cotton that matched the background in the shower curtain.)

Step 2 – Piping

Tip #2 Make piping the “easy” way

I found this wonderful piping tutorial from Addicted 2 Decorating. I followed that tutorial exactly so I’ll just post a photo of my piping.

I was so pleased with this tutorial and how nice my bias cut piping turned out!

Step 3 – Cut fabric

You will need three pieces for each cushion cover:

1. top
2. edge
3. bottom

Tip #3 Cut fabric 1″ larger than cushion

My cushions were 18-1/2″ wide by 55″ long. I cut my top and bottom pieces at 19-1/2″ wide x 56″ long. This extra inch allows for 1/2″ seam allowances.

Any time I can, I cut fabric using a rotary cutter, cutting mat, and acrylic cutting ruler. Me, my left-handedness, and scissors do not make a good combination for cutting a straight edge 😉

Next I measured the depth of the cushion and added an inch. This is how wide I cut the edge pieces. I sewed enough of these pieces together to form one long piece, equal to the perimeter of my cushion plus one inch for the seam allowance.

Step 4 – Make a sandwich & stitch

No, not that kind of sandwich 😉.

With right sides together, I pinned the top piece to the edge piece with the piping sandwiched in between.

I stitched together using 1/2″ seam allowance the whole way around, rounding at the corners.

When I was finished, I turned the fabric and saw this:

Yay! It worked!

Now I had to sew on the bottom. That meant it was time to make another fabric sandwich and stitch again. But this time, I left a rather large opening on one of the long sides for ease of turning and inserting the cushion.

Since I opted NOT to install a zipper this time (maybe another time), I had to insert my cushion and then hand sew the cover closed.

Which leads me to the last tip:

Tip #4 Wrap cushion with plastic wrap

I’m serious!

It’s pretty near impossible to get the cover on the cushion without it. Go ahead. Try. See? What a difference.

I am pleased with how these cushion covers turned out. I really like that I didn’t spend a ton of money on expensive fabric for them. Now I won’t feel guilty when I tire of this fabric and want to change them out. I’m already thinking ahead to Christmas decorating!