Cushions galore!

A couple of months ago my sitting room had a red theme. The cushions, settee covers and throws were red and the sitting room had many red accessories. I fancied a change after near on 7 years of this colour scheme and took the opportunity to make some of my own stuff.

After talking with Mr TimeForCrafts, we decided grey was nice base colour and we could keep red accessories because we like the colour. Our settees are from a popular flat pack furniture store and you can buy different coloured covers for them but I fancied trying out my sewing machine skills so I searched the internet high and low for a pattern but I couldn’t find one. I figured I could unpick one of the covers I have and take a pattern from that (which I have done with clothes that are a bit worn but I like the cut) but life got in the way and the option I was left with was buying grey covers from the aforementioned popular flat pack shop. One day I will make a pattern and put it up one here for other people in the same position as I was. This, although being the easier option, was a little sad as I wanted to personalise my home but then it hit me… I am going to need new cushions and throws to match the new covers. *fist pump* craft time!

So keeping with the red and grey theme I bought some beautiful bold patterned fabric, one white and the other with big splashes of red in keeping with the rest of the room, contrasting plain grey cotton for the back panels and grey zips. Cushions are a wonderful thing to make. They are simple to make, you don’t need a lot of fabric to make one and it’s a nice was of adding your own touch to a room. This is how I made my basic covers:

Measure your filling for the pillow. Mine was 50cmx50cm. So you will need a piece of fabric 52cmx52cm in both fabric choices (to allow for a 1cm seam allowance). I used a 46cm zip.

I do not own a zip foot for the sewing machine but I managed just fine with a standard machine foot. Place the two fabric pieces, right sides facing up, next to each other and pin the zip in place centred between them and stitch as close as you can to the zip teeth to make a nice smooth join.

Then fold the fabric together right sides facing each other, in together and stitch open sides up remembering your seam allowance. Also don’t forget to stitch up the little bit either side of the zip.

Oh make sure you leave the zip open so you can turn it the right way round again otherwise you will have just sealed your cushion up!!!

Turn it the right way round, put your filling in, zip it up and voila one basic cushion cover.

There are other ways of doing cushions. I have made some in on single fabric where I measured a 52cmx102cm (1cm seam allowance) fold it in half (right side facing) insert zip as above and sew the two open sides and either side of the zip. You could pipe the edges of the cushion but I found this is a nice and easy way of doing it and I think they look great!

This is tutorial number two. I want to apologise as I forgot to photo my step by step when I made them. My next cushion craft will be patchwork so look out for that!