Kitchen Bench Pillow

Hi All,

I'd like to share with you the pillow I made for our kitchen bench.  I wanted it to be wipeable so I used a heavy duty decorative table cloth.  You can buy this from Fabricland on the bolt by the meter. I've used this material before to make my own high chair covers.  I find it a little difficult to work with especially if you're top stitching on the front of the fabric.  It's very slippery but you just have to try your best.

First step is to measure.  The good thing about this fabric is they have lines on the back similar to what you might find on wrapping paper, making it a breeze to cut.  My measuring consists of placing the cushions I'm going to use and eyeballing it.  Yup, keeping it real profession up in here.

You could use stuffing, or a couple old pillows for the filling.  I used some chair pads that we weren't using.

Do it this way.

Don't do it this way.  Bad idea.

I added some tabs under to keep the pillow attached to the bench.  I cut one long piece about 3" x 22". Fold it in half lengthwise with wrong sides facing each other.  I tried sewing it good sides facing each other intending to turn it out but I realized that would be a huge pain and probably not doable without ripping it.

Then press the seam to one side in the middle with you're finger.

Once that's done, measure where you want to velcro to go by trying it on the bench first.  Pin the velcro and sew.

Leaving the strips on your bench, place your fabric on top.  Don't center it unless you want the seam on top!  Place it so the seam will be on the side.  The next part was done by feel.  Feel where the velcro tabbed strip is and pin in place.  I outlined where it was in pencil, so that I knew where to sew.

Sew the strips on.  This part was a pain.

Then you sew the whole thing, good sides facing each other.  Leave a large enough gap on one side to turn and put in your filling.  I sewed boxed corners also. When you turn it be very careful not to man-handle it.  It will rip (speaking from experience).

Put in your pillows and hot glue the opening.  I tried top-stitching it closed but that turned out to be a huge mess.

I hope the instructions were clear enough.

A view from underneath so you can see the velcro in action.

There you have it.  A nice, easy to clean bench pillow.  Great for messy adults kids. :)

Blessings,
Christina

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UPDATE (April 10, 2014):  The plastic table cloth material did not stand up to the wear-and-tear and ripped in so many places.  Please see the updated post here.