This weekend I made this bench cushion, inspired by the Pia Wallen blanket that’s so popular nowadays. First I made a square quilt top and after I constructed it into a pillow.
I made it for the Molger bench from Ikea, but with a little bit of adjustments in size, it should be possible to make for any kind of bench or chair.

The materials you will need for this tutorial:
– Two colors of cotton (I used about 1m black and 20cm white)
– Foam for the inside of the pillow (2 cm thickness)
– Ruler, scissors and threaded sewing machine
– Zipper (40cm or shorter)

First, cut out all the pieces for the quilt itself (you will have to cut a lot of squares). I used a seam allowance of 1 cm (included in the measurements) so it would be easy to iron the seams open. Than cut the foam and the pillow parts.

After you cut all the pieces, you can set the pillow parts aside and start assembling the quilt top.

01. First you will make strips of each 10 rectangles, sewn together, like in the picture. In total you will assemble 19 of those strips. When the strips are ready, iron the seams open.

02. Sew all strips together like shown in the illustration, and iron the new seams open. Your quilt top is now ready for assembly.

After the quilt top is finished, assemble the pillow with the other pieces.

01. Fold pieces 5 like shown in the pictures, and stitch it to the zipper end, so the total length of this piece is 40 cm (if bigger, you can cut this later on).

02. Sew pieces 4 on the sides of the zipper. After this, cut excess fabric that could be there so the size of the total zipper piece is as big as piece 3.

Here you can find further explanation of the assembly of the zipper. It’s actually a tutorial for a clutch, but the zipper principle is the same.

03. Sew the zipper piece, piece 3 and pieces 2 together on the sides (seam allowance 1cm) and make a rectangle. These pieces sewn together will form the sides of the pillow.

04. Pin the side pieces to the quilt top (right sides facing each other) and sew together.

05. Open the zipper

06. Repeat step 04, attaching piece 1 to the pillow.

07. Turn the whole thing inside out through the zipper hole, insert the foam and voila, your pillow is ready to be used!