Check Border Knit Pillow in Bernat Forever Fleece - Downloadable PDF

Check Border Knit Pillow in Bernat Forever Fleece — Pattern Summary

This intermediate-level knitting pattern produces a beautifully textured 20" [51 cm] square decorative pillow designed to fit a standard 20-inch pillow form. The design features a classic check or box stitch border framing a smooth stockinette center panel, giving the finished cushion a polished, structured look that works equally well in modern and traditional home décor settings. The pattern is available as a free downloadable PDF and is published under the Bernat brand.

What Is Being Made

The project is a knitted throw pillow cover worked in two separate panels — a front and a back — that are seamed together and fitted over a 20" [51 cm] square pillow form. The finished cushion showcases a textured check border surrounding a central stockinette field, creating a subtle but eye-catching contrast between the smooth and structured sections of the fabric.

Design Details and Construction

The pillow front begins with a cast-on of 56 stitches and opens with a full Box Stitch border section worked across all stitches for 14 rows. This establishes the bottom border of the pillow. From there, the pattern transitions into a combination layout: the left and right edges continue in Box Stitch to form the side borders, while the central 26 stitches are worked in smooth stockinette stitch, creating a recessed, fabric-like center panel. Stitch markers are placed on the needle to separate the border sections from the center panel, making it easy for knitters to track the pattern repeats as they work. The top border mirrors the bottom, completing the symmetrical check-framed design. The back panel construction follows a similar approach, and the two pieces are joined using a yarn needle for seaming.

Techniques Used

• Casting on — a standard cast-on of 56 stitches to begin each panel
• Box Stitch Pattern — a four-row repeat that alternates knit and purl columns in a shifting sequence to produce a woven, checkerboard-like texture across the border sections
• Stockinette stitch — knit on right-side rows and purled on wrong-side rows to create the smooth central panel
• Stitch marker placement and slipping — split ring stitch markers are placed on the needle to delineate the center stockinette section from the continuing Box Stitch borders, and are slipped on every subsequent row
• Seaming — the front and back panels are joined with a yarn needle to enclose the pillow form

Stitches Used

• Knit stitch (K) — the foundational stitch used throughout both border and center sections
• Purl stitch (P) — used in combination with knit stitches to build the Box Stitch texture and to work the wrong-side rows of the stockinette center
• Box Stitch Pattern — a four-row repeat combining K2, P2 sequences that shift by two stitches every two rows, producing a raised check or basket-weave effect across the border areas
• Stockinette stitch — smooth knit-face fabric formed by knitting all right-side stitches and purling all wrong-side stitches in the center panel

Materials and Tools

The pattern calls for Bernat® Forever Fleece™, a chunky weight yarn (9.9 oz / 280 g per ball; 194 yds / 177 m) in either White Noise (61004) or Juniper (61007). A total of 3 balls are required to complete the project. Bernat Forever Fleece is a plush, fleece-like yarn known for its soft texture and excellent stitch definition, making it particularly well-suited to textured stitch patterns like the Box Stitch used here.

The recommended needle size is U.S. 11 (8 mm) straight knitting needles, or the size needed to achieve the specified gauge. Additional tools include 2 split ring stitch markers,