I recently recovered my dining room chairs in Jamil Natural fabric as you may already know. Once the upholsterer was finished with the work, I asked him to save any leftover fabric for me because I had a little DIY in mind. He returnedΒ over a metre of fabric to meΒ so I decided I wanted to create a leopard print bolster cushion for my bed.

Now, it would have been fairly easy for me to just buy a large bolster cushion insert. There are loads of them on eBay and online (the square ones are usually referred to as ‘pregnancy cushions’ strangely but there ya go) but they all seemed to be 19″ high. Well, I didn’t want a huge cushion, just something long and narrow to go across my bed. I’ll get to the finished product in a bit but I needed that insert before I could make my cushion cover so I thought, how hard can creating one really be?

DIY Bolster Cushion Insert - see how on www.swoonworthy.org

Surprise, surprise, it was incredibly simple, took me less than an hour to make and cost me around Β£12. Not bad for something that was really large, exactly the size I wanted and luxuriously down-filled.

DIY Bolster Cushion Insert - see how on www.swoonworthy.org

So this little tutorial may be specific to bolster cushions but the principals remain the same. You can literally create any size or shape you want to and making your own cushion insert (for those of you not adverse to a bit of sewing) couldn’t be easier. I choose to fill mine with a duck feather down which makes for a wonderful “fluffable” soft cushion but you can always use hollow fibre fill as well if you don’t want the mess. And yeah, working with feathers is a bit messy but utterly satisfying, trust me.

Here’s what you need:

  • 1 metre (1 yard) whiteΒ cotton poplinΒ fabric (I purchased this one)
  • 1 kilo (apprx 35 oz) feather down filling (I purchased this one)
  • white thread
  • a sewing machine
  • a standard sewing kit (pins, needles, scissors, etc)

ClickΒ the slideshow for a step by step of the process:

Now I was going to share with you the process of making the actual cushion cover but I made so many small errors on it that it wasn’t really worthy of a tutorial. I didn’t allow quite enough for my seam allowance and had to keep fixing my errors along the way – it doesn’t make for a particularly good post let me tell you and stressed me right out. Oh well, a domestic goddess I am not.

DIY Bolster Cushion Insert finished - see how on www.swoonworthy.org

In the end, the cushion looks absolutely fine – I just wouldn’t want any seamstresses coming over to inspect my work because it’s certainly not perfect but nothing you can actually notice when looking at it!

DIY Bolster Cushion Insert finished - see more on www.swoonworthy.org

Can I just take a moment to mentionΒ my Eve mattress* is holding up so well! I’ve just had so many questions about it since I posted my review that I wanted to give you a little update. I love it so much and we both get such a good night’s sleep on it (you can see how badly my sleep patterns can be here). I actually resent having to sleep anywhere else when we go away because I miss my bed!! So if you are looking for a great mattress with a 100 day money back guarantee, definitelyΒ check them out.

*denotes affiliate link – you don’t pay any more but I earn a few extra pennies towards pretties for the bedroom! Win win!

You may also be wondering about the other cushions behind the large bolster. Those were gifted to me by my bloggie friend Tiina from Elce Stockholm. She just has the most amazing designs and I was over the moon when the parcel arrived. Aren’t they just stunning? And incredibly good quality too.

DIY Bolster Cushion Insert finished - see how to make the insert on www.swoonworthy.org

You can check out where to buy them on her site here. Wayfair UK also stocks a selection here. I wasn’t under any obligation to blog about them but of course, they are far too pretty not to share!

DIY Bolster Cushion Insert tutorial - black bedroom with yellow headboard and leopard print bolster cushion - see more on www.swoonworthy.org

The navy knitted throw, if you are wondering, is from Sainsbury’s! It’s super soft and lightweight and part of their new SS16 line. I’ll be sharing more about that in a couple of weeks.

DIY Bolster Cushion Insert tutorial - black bedroom with yellow headboard and leopard print bolster cushion

In the end,Β it ended up being a bit of a Spring update on my bedding and I’m loving the fresh new look. The bolster is incredibly supportive –Β perfect for sitting in bed watching Netflix on my tablet.

Is this a DIY you would try? What do you think of the new look?

 

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