With the wood base I prefer to drill a hole in the center for use with a pillow stand. It allows you to pivot the pillow around on a short dowel peg and prevents it falling off even when slanted. This is not practical with ethafoam base, as the hole would distort with very little use. 

Once you have obtained your base the next step is the muslin inner pillow. I lay my fabric on the floor and trace around the base with a pencil. I cut out 2 layers of fabric on the outside edge of pencil line. Then I stitch a ¼” seam and an 1/8” seam inside that for extra strength. Both seams should leave an opening of about 6” on one edge and backstitched. Once you turn your muslin circle inside out you can commence stuffing.

I recommend fine wood “sawdust” for this purpose. I like the remnants left by a table/radial arm saw best. Not the curls left from planing. Make sure the wood does not contain bark or pitch will stain your pillow and thus your work. I sift it with a cat litter scoop (clean of course) to remove the occasional wood curl which makes inserting a pin into the pillow more difficult. You should partially fill pillow to a thickness of about 2”. I then pin the opening with safety pins or close-pins and lay the pillow down on the wood base.(If ethafoam is used do this step on sheet on floor and don't fill as much) I use a rolling pin to pound and roll the sawdust as compactly as possible. I even walk on the pillow without shoes to get it as firm as possible. I also try to slightly mound it slightly thicker toward the center ending up with ½” to ¾” of compressed sawdust on edges and about 1” in center. If necessary adding more sawdust. 

When pillow is firm enough (it takes several hours to achieve this) you can then hand stitch up the opening. (if using ethafoam base gently slide pillow onto ethafoam now) The next step is to build up center of pillow. You will need padding for this step. The best material is wool blanket or coating pieces but felt and polar fleece also work. Cut graduating circles about 2” smaller than pillow and then 2” smaller for each layer until you have about a 10” circle for last one. (about 5 layers) These are just laid on top of muslin pillow in reverse order (smallest first to largest on top). 

Now you need fabric to cover the pillow. You can use any fabric you choose that will easily allow a pin to pass through but tight enough to help keep fine sawdust from escaping. Cotton fabric with a weight a little heavier than calico works well. Popular colors are navy blue, burgundy or forest green. But it is critical that the fabric is colorfast. A simple way to check is to bring a scrap of white cotton fabric (like a handkerchief) with me to the fabric store and rub the dark fabric hard and if the color comes off onto handkerchief then I look for something else. 

Cut the fabric at least 4 to 6” wider all the way around than the pillow. This is important to give you something to grab while pulling cover tight. A staple gun is best way to attach the cover to wooden base or straight or T pins for the ethafoam. Center fabric over pillow, padding and base. Attach cover in this order. First attach at 12 o’clock then 6, then 3 and 9 o’clock. Then ease the fabric over the rest of pillow by placing each staple halfway between 2 previous staples, keeping gathers to a minimum, until staples are no more than ½” apart. The whole top should be smooth and the gathers showing only over the sides. I like to use woven embroidered trim to cover staples and raw edges. I prefer either sewing or using white glue to attach trim. Hot glue may be used for temporary holding of trim until white glue sets but is not strong enough as the only glue used. I use it only a dot every 6” or so with white glue for the line in-between. 

Another way to cover the ethafoam pillow is to create a drawstring around the edge of the fabric (cut 4" to 6" larger all the way around). This wraps around and ties in the back and would also allow for cleaning and changing. Enjoy creating your own lace pillow!!!