We love the Merchant & Mills version of a sofa topper. Their pattern uses layers of batting, which means you can make your topper as thick, thin, soft, or dense as you like.

We’ve actually used their pattern to make wonderfully squishy, thick mattresses for the sleeping-porch cots at our house. For our version, we made one important change: we skipped the tufting and ties because we wanted the covers to be completely removable and washable.

Instead, we use the Merchant & Mills pattern to make the soft, cushy insert, and then make separate covers in our sailcloth. This gives us the best of both worlds—a beautifully substantial, comfortable mattress inside and a washable, hardworking cover outside.

We love this approach for sofas, cots, daybeds, and anywhere else you want that wonderfully deep, sink-in feeling without sacrificing practicality. And, of course, making the cover in our sailcloth means you can change the look whenever you like—or make several covers to rotate through the seasons and whatever life happens to throw at them.

This pattern is available from merchant and Mills and is a part of their the Grove PDF and also featured in their beautiful book house which is available for sale on our website.

I’d keep this one enthusiastic and a little aspirational, since the appeal of this project is really how much impact you can get from a relatively small amount of fabric.