How to Make a Tufted Floor Pillow

Everyone needs a giant tufted floor pillow, right? There’s nothing quite like seeing your kids play and read together. It makes me so happy to see them all crouched together around a game they’ve made up and realize that they’re already best friends. So I wanted to make something that would facilitate this togetherness and be a fun spot for Saige to read to her sisters since she’s started reading.

And when I got to pick out a few yards of Art Gallery fabric, I knew I wanted to make a tufted floor pillow for my girlies to play on together. I chose the Panache canvas, and I love it. The navy with white feathers is whimsical and the canvas itself is pretty soft since its made with a premium cotton.

So I’m showing you how I made my tufted floor pillow so you can follow along and make your own. They would be perfect for movie nights, in a bedroom or playroom, or for a pretend tea party.

Tufted Floor Pillow Supplies

• 3 yards Art Gallery canvas or home decor fabric
• About 5 yards ruffled blanket binding
• Stuffing (I used an inexpensive duvet that we weren’t using anymore)
• Sewing machine and thread
• Long hand needle
• Pins or wonder clips
• 10 Buttons (I used a covered button kit)

Tufted Floor Pillow Instructions

1. Cut your canvas into two 45″ squares. (Really, you can make this any shape or size–square, rectangle, circle–you get the idea.)
2. Pin the ruffled binding to the right side of the canvas around all the edges of one square, and then baste the ruffle to the edge. We’re treating it like piping rather than binding for a fun ruffle around the edges.
3. Place the squares right sides together so the ruffles are to the inside and all the raw edges are aligned. This photo shows how the “sandwich” goes together.
4. Now sew along all the edges with a 1/2″ seam allowance leaving a 12″ opening for stuffing your pillow. Be careful around the corners that you don’t get the ruffles caught in the seams. (Ask me how I know that…)
5. Trim your corners being sure not to cut the stitches, and turn it right side out.
6. Now stuff your pillow to your desired fluffiness, and sew up the opening. You can either do this by hand using an invisible stitch, or carefully sew it up with your sewing machine sewing as close to the edge as possible.
7. Now we’re going to tuft the pillow. Basically, you’re taking a long needle and sewing right through your pillow from top to bottom and anchoring the stitches with a button on each side of the pillow to keep your stuffing from shifting. Since it’s a large pillow, I tufted in five different places. I also used covered buttons so they’d blend in nicely.

And that’s it.

Grab your kids and let them come up with ways to use their new floor pillow. No matter how they use it, you’ll love that they’re playing all together.