How To Make A Pillow With Turkish Corners
You all know that I LOVE pillows, especially pillows with details. Today, I’m going to share how to make a pillow with turkish corners. This pillow actually has two decorative details that I love – the turkish corners and the pleated flat trim. They work really well together!
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If you’ve never heard of turkish corners, you might be wondering what they are. Basically, they’re a pleating detail on the corners of a pillow that make the pillow more of a box shape.
I recently made pillows for two of my dining area chairs, and I knew turkish corners were the way to go. One of the benefits of making turkish corners on your pillows is that the box shape makes the pillow sit up better on a slick piece of furniture such as leather or wood.
The other decorative detail on this pillow is the flat trim. It’s basically a flat, empty cording. I love this kind of detail for a pillow, and the turkish corners make it easier to go around the corners with a nice pleat.
How To Make A Pillow With Turkish Corners
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Materials:
Fabric for the front and back sides – The amount of fabric needed depends on the pillow size. The fabric yardage I used for this project was 3/4 yard.
Fabric for the flat trim – 1/4 yard
Pillow form – I really like Fairfield’s Soft Touch pillow forms. Whatever size you would like. My pillow form size is 14″ x 18″.
Needle – for hand-sewing fabric together.
Thread to match fabric
Straight pins
Leather Thimble
Instructions:
(I’ve linked to a couple previous pillow posts that may be helpful for sewing the flat trim to the pillow and hand-sewing the pillow closed.)
- Cut out the front and back sides of your fabric the same size as your pillow form. My form is 18″ x 14″, that is the size that I cut my pillow fabric.
- To create the turkish corners, fold the fabric diagonally at one corner with right sides together.
Measure over 1 1/2″ from point of corner, and mark with a pin. 
Flatten the point of the corner evenly over the pin, and pin each side in place.
Repeat these steps 2-4 for all of the rest of the corners. - Cut out fabric for the flat trim. To make a 1″ finished flat trim, cut the fabric strip 3″ wide. The length of the strip needs to be the total of all 4 sides of your pillow form plus an additional 20″. The extra will be for the pleats and for joining the ends of the flat trim together. Fold the fabric strip in half with right sides out, and iron.
- Serge the two long edges together.
- Apply the flat trim to the front face side of the pillow fabric, starting on the bottom edge. Just as you would if you were sewing regular cording to the pillow. At the first corner, make an inverted pleat. Make sure to match up the pleat with the turkish corner pleat. Continue sewing around the rest of the pillow fabric, making a pleat at each corner. Join the two ends of flat trim together as you would cording.
- Pin and sew front and back sides together – right sides together. Start sewing 2″ from the first bottom corner, continue around all four sides. Stop sewing 2″ from last corner on the bottom side, so that there is an opening to insert the pillow form.
- Turn the pillow cover right sides out, and insert the pillow form.
- Pin the bottom edges together, and hand sew the pillow closed.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this how to make a pillow with turkish corners tutorial!
If you liked this pillow tutorial, you may like these too!
How To Hand-Sew A Pillow Closed
How To Make A Pillow With Cording
I’m joining these parties!
regarding the turkish corner tut – for a different size pillow (20 x 20) would the measurement on the corners be the same ( 1 1/2 in as shown in the tut) or does a different formula apply?
You can use the same measurements.