So, I had a set of place mats from Target already on hand, and I bought a white accent pillow and zipper from Hobby Lobby.
I placed the place mat around the pillow, marking the width, and cut a little over one inch off the width making sure to leave enough material to sew with. I wanted the pillow to be small and long.
I turned the pillow inside out and got ready to pin the zipper. This is the hard part. To make the seam look 'more' professional, fold the cut material length down so that the right side of the material is facing up along the open seam. Place the zipper along the right side of the material so that the folded seam lies on the zipper and pin it in place. You should have three layers to pin...the zipper, the folded seam, and the pillow side. Also note the more material you allow in the seam, the more you will hide the zipper when it is finished. The zipper will have a "lip" of material to cover it up. I did not give my first pillow a large lip as you can see, but the second I tried it and liked it a lot better.
Sew along the pinned line.
Line up the back side of the zipper making sure both sides of the zipper are even.
And repeat.
To finish it off, I actually sewed in a slight diagonal from the end of the zipper up towards the corner of the pillow. If you sew it straight out the zipper will protrude from the pillow, so this technique will help hide it. And lastly, the place mats had a small thread line around the edge, making it almost look like it had piping, so I finished the corners off with the same.
Here it is, zipper side up!
All in all, I am really happy with my new pillows. Most will never know they used to be place mats, and the best part is they are washable! I haven't taken a picture of them on my new chairs yet, but when I do I will post it. It took me about an hour each after gathering all the materials, but a good seamstress could do it in half the time.
