The Giant Cushion

First I want to say something about my last post.  My sister said she liked the idea of making a quilt out of the old photo of my parents (the one to which I had added a photoshop filter) after I "challenged" her to do it.  She said, "I like the idea of the quilt throwdown."  Cracked me up. Is that something the folks in Quilting World say?  Kind of like a Quilt Rumble?  Maybe it's a tradition that the Jets and the Sharks started.  ha ha!  Anyhow, I will keep you posted.

Some friends of mine asked me to upholster a large cushion for a window seat they have in their house.  Although I don't usually do upholstery, I agreed to do this.  So they bring this cushion over, and it was gigantic!  Really humongous.  They had to special order the foam to fit the bench, and they actually had to glue two pieces together to get the right size!  Yikes.

I have reupholstered cushions before, but I did by taking apart the old fabric and trying to figure out how it was done.  My attempts have been pretty good in the past, but it always took me a loooong time.  This time, I was fortunate to have my studio partner, Susan L., help me. She worked for a while in a high end upholstery shop in Charlottesville, VA. She kindly walked me through all the steps, and I think it wound up looking pretty good! The fabric was pretty, and I had some red that contrasted nicely for piping. So here I am sewing that on.





Mission Piping Accomplished (doesn't it look nice?!):


The next step was to glue the batting onto the cushion.  I just discovered spray on glue!  Is there no end to the world of crafting supplies?  So, I sprayed the cushion and then put the batting on. Then I sat back and looked in horror at the miserable job I did.  It really couldn't have been more crooked.  It was a joke.  Fortunately, my sewing saviour, Susan, helped me set it right.  We trimmed it and sewed it on around the edges (that's Susan L. below).

Then I put this gianormous zipper on, which, luckily, went quite smoothly.  All done.  Except for wrassling that baby on to the cushion.  And, voila!  I breathed a huge sigh of relief when my friends picked it up and were happy with it.