Thursday, April 2, 2009

Chair Cushion - Foam Part 1


The first project is a cushion - perhaps the most conventional
use for foam that I know of. Not earth-shatteringly creative,
I know, but very practical because it allows for long hours of
comfortable sitting while making other more exciting stuff at
the sewing table. I made this chair cushion when I got my
sewing room chair more than two years ago, using ancient
Ikea fabric (from the 90's!) and a 2" chair cushion insert
from JoAnn. The foam insert was already roughly the size
I needed, so I just trimmed some corners off to fit my chair.


The cushion cover itself has a gusset, piping and a zipper
hidden along the piping. I also added skinny straps at the
corners for chair-ties. I laughed when I took this picture -
two years under my weight have taken their toll on the foam!


Since I made this during the pre-blog-era, I don't have a
tutorial for it. But while writing this post, I found a great
tutorial at Sew Mama Sew for putting a cushion like this
together, including the piping and zipper.

Some minor differences in how I did mine:
  1. Fabric case for the piping - I did not cut mine on the bias because it was going to be sewn along only straight edges all round the cushion shape. I usually only use bias-cut binding when it needs to go around curves like necklines.
  2. Zipper - I like hiding my zippers so I made mine flush against the piping of one of the edges, rather than be in the center of the gusset. To do this, I sewed one side of the zipper along one edge of the gusset, and used the other side of the zipper as the seam allowance of the gusset itself and sewed the piping case directly onto the zipper. Also I didn't use the iron, because I am lazy and don't iron anything if I can help it.
  3. Handles - didn't need them for this chair.

But really, ignore all these fussy little differences and enjoy
the tutorial, if for just how to add piping and to make single
long strip of bias tape! And imagine all the customized
shapes of cushions you can make- alphabet letter cushions
for kids' rooms, guitar-shaped throw-cushions for music
fans, flower-shaped kneelers in outdoor fabric for gardening
enthusiasts..... I am desperate to make cushions for
window-seats and entryway benches except I have neither
pieces of furniture, nor the space at home to install them.

If you aren't excited about zippers and don't plan on letting
the children near your cushions with their happy weapons
of mass decoration (markers, crayons, sippy cups of red
Kool-Aid), then stitch the opening shut after inserting the
foam. Or leave out the piping. Or sew buttons underneath
instead of the zipper. Or velcro. If you have an old cushion
to repurpose, that's even better than going shopping for
new foam! Or strip an old foam mattress and go crazy
reupholstering all the sit-able surfaces in your house!!
OK, I'll stop now.

1 comment:

  1. Rather interesting site you've got here. Thanks for it. I like such topics and everything connected to them. I definitely want to read more soon.

    Best regards
    Steave Markson

    ReplyDelete

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