In my kitchen, there is a lovely bay window. This is where our kitchen table and built-in benches are. The cushions for the benches were made right after we moved into our house, and they are showing their age of almost 12 years.
12 years of sitting, sliding, dropping food, children learning to eat, and wiping dirty fingers, etc has done a number to these poor cushions.
It is time to make new covers for them.
I decided that the zippers were still in good working order, the piping needed a little bit of replacing but most of it was still good, and the foam inserts were generally in good shape.
I started out by tearing the old cushions apart. I tried to keep the pieces intact so I could use them as patterns.
(This was a good task to do in the car while I was waiting for the kids to get out of school.)
When I took the cotton cording out, I didn't need to save the fabric, so I used a seam ripper to cut open the fabric enough to pull the cording out.
After I cut everything out, I started to make the new covers.
I started by putting in the zippers. I am not a fan of sewing zippers, but these ones turned out pretty well!
I then made the piping. Using my zipper foot, so I could sew as close to the cord as possible, I folded the fabric around the cord and stitched it closed.
Doing this step made sewing the piping to the cushion a lot easier to handle.
Then I sandwiched the top, piping, and sides together and pinned them to hold them in place.
Then I sewed it all together. I stitched the seams twice to give it some durability.
Here they are finally finished!
Some tricks I learned through this project:
Clip the corners to help with the smooth curves in the corners.
Use the zipper foot when stitching the piping.
Wrap batting around the foam padding to add some softness to the cushion.
I am so excited for my new cushions! They have breathed some new life into my tired looking kitchen.
Have fun quilting (or sewing!)
