Sewing on my own: making a cushion
7 Mar
After the sewing course I took earlier this year, I resolved to do more sewing and to practice making each of the things I learnt how to make. Well, I havent made all of them, but making a cushion is almost (almost) impossible to mess up, so I tackled that first. I bought some beautiful fabrics (from online store modes4u) and made the first thing completely on my own!
The six half metres I picked up
When we moved in to our flat, I really wanted a lot of fun cushions. They are a) pretty b) an easy way to mix up colours in a room and c) really comfy! However, they are super expensive. Cushions cost more than £30 a pop in most places (the ones I fell in love with at John Lewis were £80. EACH!). Who knew? So making your own cushions is a great idea as they’re super easy to make and far cheaper.
You will need 1/2 metre of fabric and something to stuff the cushion with. You could use 1/2 metre of the same pattern or use 1/4 of something plain for the back and something swisher for the front, to make it even cheaper to make. I went to the amazing Crafty Sewer for my stuffing.
I won’t write out full instructions, as I’d be very likely to leave a step out unless I copy my instructions from Sew Over It out word for word (which doesn’t seem like a friendly thing to do), but there are lots of tutorials on making cushions online, including a video here and a step by step guide here.
My big bit of advice is: make sure you put the pieces right side (ie patterned side) to right side and sew along the edges. I say this is almost impossible to mess up, but I did here, and sewed them wrong sides in so the pattern would have appeared on the inside of the cushion. Oops! I had to unpick the whole thing and start again! But still, that didn’t take too long. Even including that, the whole project took around an hour.
How great are those fabrics!? I can’t wait to make more stuff with them.
I gave this cushion as an early house warming gift to my friend Niko. Friends moving soon may find themselves with more of these cushions soon…
My next project might actually be a bit bigger – I’m going to take part in Elena’s tutorial on making a skirt! It feels like a big jump from cushions to skirts, but hopefully she won’t mind me pestering her with questions on Twitter when I finally get my fabric and get started!
Oh wow, I love the cushion – it looks great! I spied the fox fabric too, so pretty. I might have to order some fabric from modes4u.
I’m looking at making my own cushions too at some point, and was thinking about purchasing some cheap cushions to cover. I’m hoping it’ll work just as well as stuffing.
Leanne
That’s a good idea – IKEA do some good sizes, but I can never find the size I like AND the fabric I like when I’m there, but now I’ll just make the covers myself!
That fabric is epic. Now there’s no hope for my savings… I’ll be spending it all on this fabric!
Thanks for the shout out too, hope you find the series helpful. Vive le skirt!
x Elena @ Randomly Happy
What gorgeous fabric, i will definately chcck out that website!