Linen cushions are finally, finally done!

The cushion project for DD#2 is finally done. Cushion number one went perfectly, taking no extra time and falling into place like a snowflake on Christmas. Cushion number two: let's just say it was a friggin' nightmare. It took me five passes around the last boxing edge to get it finished. I've since calmed down, and the cushions are ready to be delivered on Thanksgiving. Here's the low-down.

DD wanted two cushions to fill the window seat of her bay window in the family room, 110 inches wide and 17 inches deep. On her own, she purchased the fabric and asked if I could make them. The fabric was a linen drapery fabric with a large repeat. Her purchase was done without my input. The linen was too light, IMO and would there be enough with the huge match? As far as the match, I made it with a six inch square piece to spare. Talk about close! But it matches nicely, on the covers and the boxing. Since the linen was too light, IMO, but was perfect for her room, IHO, I backed it all with fusible tricot interfacing, better.  For the insides I used the high density foam, thank you Joann's, and wrapped it with poly batting. The batting was loosely stitched together around the core and then was good to go.

I made miles of piping, 23 yards to be exact and too much but you just never know, and I used the technique for making bias found in the tutorial tab. The plan was to stitch the piping to one "cover" and then stitch the boxing to it following the previous stitching. That worked well and the first cushion came out perfectly.  The second cushion, not so much.

It took me five passes around the final boxing seam before I was finished. I sewed the boxing to the top and then took a couple days off to go to work. Then I stitched the remaining boxing seam to the bottom or so I thought. I am using my Kenmore and you can't see the spool from the front of the machine. I sewed the first four inches beautifully. Little did I know that the spool was empty after that. Remember in seventh grade Home Ec class they told you to look at your edge, not the needle? Well I did and thne stitched the entire boxing to the bottom with no thread, Pass Number One. OK, take a day off, start again with a full bobbin and spool of thread. It's going well. I got all the way around and about 12 inches from the end realized I had ALL THIS EXTRA fabric bunching up  at the end, GAhhhhhh. The boxed corners didn't match up from top to bottom either, Am I losing it? I am just shoving this away.

Another weekend and I rip out all the previous stitching that should have finished the cushion. Try again. This time I was really careful, lining up my corners nicely and spreading out any ease. Looked good and I decided I would baste it first just to be sure. I baste stitched all around  and all look wonderful. We are now into Pass Number Three. Let's finish this baby! I grab the cushion cover and start sewing.  I am excited to be done. and wha.....I restitched the OTHER boxing seam which was just fine, Pass Number Four. Can you hear my primal scream? Ok, here's comes Pass Number Five and I am going to get it right this time and I did! The Sewing Gremlins definitely took up residence in my sewing room for this project. Is not any project for someone else, whether we love them or not, doomed to major frustration? Sometimes I think so. But it is now done, and I am sipping my glass of wine as I write here.

Below you can see the two cushions. Because they are so long I couldn't get them all in the pic or close enough for detail. They are the same size and match nicely despite some sort of optical illusion going on.

I will be bringing the two cushions to New Hampshire and will  place them in their new home on the window seat in the way wide bay window. In the end, I think they will look nice and DD will appreciate my efforts. I am just glad it's done.

Hanging over the couch and visible in a few pics is the tapestry for my next project. I can't wait! I will be working on a much needed new bag for winter. Reading Marie Kondo's organizing book conned me into chucking nearly every bag I own. They didn't  "spark joy" in me. My next project will be making a bag that "sparks joy" in my heart. Better not have any gremlins.....................Bunny

Those pesky cording/welting ends!

While I have several posts on the blog about my previous excursion into cushion making, it occurred to me today that I didn't show what to do when you have finished stitching the cording/welting to the home dec fabric. They need to meet in a smooth, rather unnoticeable way and that can get a bit tricky to do.

On this project I am attaching welting all around the rectangle of fabric that will make the top of the cushion. The bottom of the cushion will get the same treatment. There will be a band of fabric, aka, "boxing" running around the perimeter of the cushion but that's later!


On the seam that attaches  the welting to the rectangular base, both raw edges are met, just like sewing any seam. I've made my seam and my welting seam allowances just a hair under a half inch . Stitching will begin about 2 inches up from the end of the welting. The welting is attached all around the rectangle.Stop sewing approximately two inches before the start of the seam.

You should now have an unsewn area of about two inches on the rectangle and  couple of dangling pieces of covered welting.

Trim the right hand welting to one inch in length. Open up the stitches on the left hand welting. Put some Fray Block on both ends to stop unravelling.

Go to the ironing board. Move the cord out of the way. Trim and fold back the end of the left hand welt and press into place. The left hand welt will need to be trimmed so that it is long enough to cover the right hand welt by about1/2-3/4 of an inch once folded and in place.

Wrap the fabric covering the left welt over the trimmed right welt. Trim and Fray Bloc the left cord so it meets up with the right cord.

Pin and take it to the machine. You can see my wet Fray bloc in all the pics.

Stitch with a 1.5 stitch length over the unstitched area. 

Still wet with Fray Bloc but done! Two points: this technique can be used with any sort of corded piping. Here it is on Home Dec but I have often used it with baby piping. Also, an effort should be made to plan the welting so that the joins are far away visually, in this case on the short side of the cushion.  Happy welting!......................Bunny

Office Chair Slipcover Completed

I just love it. DH is calling it the Throne. But it wasn't easy getting to this point. Come on along for the ride.....

  This is what I woke up to yesterday morning. I had been using my great Sunset slipcover book but very quickly I figured out not much in there applied to making a slipcover for an office chair with these arms. Yes, I could have taken the arms off easily and reuphonstered the back and seat but that's not what I wanted. I wanted the slipcover "look" and I wanted to be able to remove it for cleaning. I was now totally in the dark. I just went bit by bit and figured it out as I went along. I decided to make the back section and the seat section separately and then worry about putting them together after. I was almost at wadder stage but you all know that if nothing else I am persistent.

I added the skirt to the sides and made it long enough to go all the way to center back. But it is only stitched to the seat up to the green dot you see. From there it is connectd with velcro around the back and ties in a sash. I used up every border of the bedspread to get out all the scalloped edges for the box pleated skirt. From the green dot and right to the center back nothing is connecting the skirt to the slipcover other than velcro. This posed a major issue. This fabric is VERY thick and the box pleats gave me three layers of the matelasse as well as the two layers of cotton covering the welting. How on earth would I ever get that to turn in neatly? It definitely did not want to cooperate. This was bulk nearly a half inch thick. I know my old Kenmore is a workhorse but lets not tempt fate here. Then the light went on.

I used the old "blue jean trick".  This is where you pound the blue jeans with hammer until the bulky seams are flat and stitchable. I did the same here, I first put down a clean cloth on the concrete basement floor. Then I laid down the skirt/piping, covered it with another clean cloth and started hammering down the welting and box pleats along the top of the skirt. It worked wonderfully. The welt stayed turned in and was easy to sew through. In the pic with the green dot you can see how it was then topstitched with a zigzag next to the welting for a bit more insurance. It was now nice and crisp and time to put on the velcro.

This slipcover consists of two separate pieces, both of which tuck into the join of the back and seat very tightly. So each piece needed securing. The top of the cover connects under the arm and you can see the velcro application here along the binding. The seat cover is very securely tucked into the join and rests on top of the seat with long pleated extensions that meet in the back and tie with a black satin ribbon.

With this construction I now had a slipcover I could remove and throw into the wash.

Here's a few details more:

Credit for this glorious monogram goes to my cyber sewing friend , Jerry "Niener". She suggested it and offered to help with the design and stitch it out. It makes the chair in my opinion and I am really thankful for good friends like Jerry. You are special, Jerry.

Here is a shot of the boxing around the tops of the chair. It doesn't follow the chair's boxing as that had a weird shape. I just used a four inch strip.

In case you missed it the fabric used is a 100% cotton matelasse bedspread, queen size, and I used nearly every bit. Didn't tell you I cut the back twice because my original idea wouldn't work.  At the suggestion of another cyber sewing friend, Sivje, of Goosegirl Sews, I underlined the fabric. This will help keep it from stretching out and prevent the dark original chair showing through.

The  welting is a simple quilting cotton from Joanns, heavier than regular gingham.



I am not sure when I will do this again. It actually only took three full days of sewing, a lot of it spent on the floor with a pin in my mouth as I tried to figure it all out. I do know that this is one of those projects that really has me beaming and proud, I guess because I persisted and figured it all out on my own. Special thanks to Jerry and Sivje for their valuable contributions.

The decorating project is nearly done. I need to do a wee bit more organizing and hang some shelving tomorrow. DD also has some shelves for me as well. This  project has really got me excited about starting on the great room. That will happen as soon as the studio is finished. In the meantime, its time for some garment sewing. Its been a while.....Bunny

Home Dec Window Seat Cushions

 One large  cushion completed. I have three more to go so bear with me as I power through THREE MORE!. It was relatively easy to make. Here are some thoughts I had  as I made my way along this home dec journey.

As I have sewn long strips of bias, cord, welting, and seams I have had a chance to figure a few things out that seem to only apply to home dec sewing, not my "regular" sewing.

• Always start any home dec project utilizing welting with a prayer. This will help prevent the needle from going through your index finger as you butt/push the welting up to the one sided zipper foot. There is no protection here.  Biting your lip helps,too. 

• Everything about Home Dec is B I G,  big long strips, big long cording, big long seams, big long bias, big long zippers, you get the picture!

• Sewing multiple yards  of straight stitching can give a body a really stiff neck and shoulders, something that doesn't happen when I do garments with all their various processes.

• I think I have sewing ADD. Flitting from one process to another is my idea of fun sewing. You know, gather a sleeve cap, stitch it in the armseye, stitch again, trim, maybe add a sleeve head.......all these small processes to produce one sweet sleeve. In Home Dec you need much more focus, IMO, to sew yards and yards of straight seams and that gives you a stiff neck too.

• It takes a lot of space to sew Home Dec. Right now my family room, which is quite large, has spread out on the floor cushion tops and bottoms, big pieces of foam, little long pieces of foam, additional fabric all layed out so I don't have to iron it again. It takes a lot of freakin' space. 

• These big simple projects with only straight seams take a lot of time to sew. What part of Einstein's theory doe that pertain to? The less complicated the project, the longer it takes to sew? Hmmm...

 In reality this has been a very satisfying project. I have enjoyed it and I think each cushion will look better and better. Its really not complicated sewing.


A few construction thoughts:

•  Get that Sunset Book, "Slipcovers and Bedspreads". It is invaluable. 
• When you get the book, read it and don't skim like you might a pattern. Really read it. I learned the hard way that the zippers needed to go around the back corners and up the sides. I thought just having them go across the back would be fine but you need them to traverse the corners so that the cover opens up enough to easily slip the foam cusion inside.
• I went and bought zipper coil and made my own zips to get them long enough to reach around the corners. They sell zipper coil and the pulls and stops at Joanns pretty inexpensively. It took a few tries but I finally got the pull on and the zipper works great. Now I know how to make my own zippers, wahoo!
• You can see in the pic that the zip is double stitched. I also ran a bar of soap up and down the zip to get that metal to move more smoothly. I did my zip pretty much like a slot zipper installation, sewing the seam with a basting stitch first. 
• As mentioned in a previous post, the stitching was at 9 stitches to the inch except around the corners and at the ends of the zip where I dialed it up to about 14. 
• The fabric is NOT pretreated in any way by me. DD and I decided, after some research, that it would be best to just get these drycleaned when necessary. My experience with home dec is that unlike garments, you really want that finish the manufacturer puts on the fabric. It adds so much and prevents that  Becky Home Ecky look that would come from washing the fabric. Custom WT are not precleaned in any way and it is always recommended they be professionally cleaned. Trust me, they are not pre shrinking cotton welting in the workroom. 
• The finished cushion is 52 inches wide, 24 deep  and 3 inches high. There will be two of these side by side on the window seat. The will have bolsters on top against the wall. The fabric is from Richloom and is an indoor outdoor sunbrella type fabric. The cushions are high density (the green) foam from Joanns.

So I have three more cushions to go. I have also been TV smocking away on little Selena's bishop. It is looking sweet. I may do some bullion butterflies, we'll see what happens when all the smocking is complete. Back to the workroom........Bunny

Cushions #3, Welting

The past several days the focus has been on putting up more vegetables for the winter. The two previous days were spent roasting tomatoes and other goodies down to a sauce and bagging them up in the freezer. DH and I love "caponata" so today I roasted a couple trays of tomatoes with all the tasty goodies again but also the addition of cubed eggplant and capers, yum! I've been using fresh herbs from the garden as well and have to say these roasted sauces are incredible. DH and I sat and gobbled up the sauce with ritz crackers it was so good.

Back to sewing:

 At this point the two large cushions are all welted. To turn neat corners an inch short of the corner I would dial down the stitch length. Then, with a pencil, I would draw a line from the cord to the raw edge one half inch short of the corner as you can see above.
  That pencil line is then snipped to within 2 threads of its meager life. Once that one is snipped do two more snips, one  a half inch to the left and the other a half inch to the right of the first snip. It helps to have your needle down. Now, line your edges up and stitch around the corner. I don't do a sharp 45º corner, instead opting for a slight curve around the welting. It just sort of naturally happens so don't over think this too much. One inch past the corner dial back up to your normal stitch length which by the way, is longer for slipcovers than garments. I am sewing most of this at a recommended 9 stitches per inch. I dial the corners down to about 12-14 stitches per inch.

The next issue with welting is how to start/ finish the ends of the strip. You should start putting on the welting at the back of the cushion. Start sewing at least one inch from the actual end of the welt. Sew the welt on all around the cushion and one  inch short of the end stop, needle down, foot up. On the ending welt open up the welting and undo the stitching to reveal the cord. Cut the cord only so that it matches right up with the cord of the starting welt. Take the fabric of the ending welt and fold it under 3/8ths of an inch. Slip this under the starting welt so the two inside cords are butting heads with each other. Fold over and stitch the welt down using a smaller stitch and some back stitches. It should look like this:

I have purchased zipper coil and pulls and will be making the two very long zips needed for the cushions. I purchased shorter zips which will work for the bolsters fine as they are so thin. So that is the next part of the process.

Cissie, aka "Design Dreamer", asked if I could show the "ski type" zipper foot. You can see it in the pics. It has a screw in the back so the foot can be moved to any place you would like left or right of the needle. It is wonderful for zippers and welting and why new machines don't automatically come with one of these anymore, who knows!

Tomorrow I will be roasting and skinning peppers for preserving in a brine, at least I think I will use that method. We have quite a few peppers but I may supplement with some from our Amish neighbors. Their produce is all organic and so big and beautiful its amazing. I will leave you with a shot of one of the trays of roasted caponata:

 

Bunny