Another Refresh

After I finished the cushions in our little dining room (details in my previous post), I had enough fabric left to update another cushion (I’d hoped I would, but you never know if you’re being accurate when you are ordering fabric at midnight!). (If you missed it, the fabric for this project is from Fabric.com here.)This cushion sits on a little bench by our front door and has gotten a lot of use over the years. When I bought the bench, it had a thin tan cushion, which we used for a few years (honestly, until I felt confident enough to try to make a new one!). Then I took the plunge, bought new, thicker foam, and made a durable cover. (Kids and animals, remember?) This “new” cushion was made in 2017 and served us well, but didn’t work at all with my updated aesthetic, so it needed to be changed.

This type of cushion is called a “box cushion” and is constructed completed differently than, say, a chair cushion like those I made for the other room. The top and the bottom panels are exactly the same size and they are connected by the band in the middle and, in this case, there is piping on both pieces and a zipper panel in the back that you can’t see. This cushion is “reversable” in that either the top or the bottom can be showing, but it is not reversable front-to-back because of the zipper panel.

Pro-tip: You don’t want to run out of fabric because you miscalculated how much you’d need for a project like this. A great fabric calculator is available on Sailrite.com and it can even account for piping and directional fabrics. I highly recommend heading over there if you’re new to this kind of project. It even shows you the layout it is using to derive the calculation.

In my case, I roughly approximated how much fabric I’d need to make both the seat cushions for the little dining room and this cushion, and I always guess high, so I came out just fine. (I might even have enough fabric left to make a piped throw pillow, if I piece it together.) Here are rough cut directions: I cut the top and the bottom to the size of the foam insert plus a half inch seam allowance all around and I cut the band to the depth of the foam, plus a half inch seam allowance on either side (so, 1″ wider than the finished result). I like my slipcovers to fit tightly, so keep that in mind when you’re tackling your own. The amount of piping you’ll need is the measurement of the perimeter of the cushion, multiplied by two, plus ten inches to join the piping. In this case, my cushion is 36 x 14 x 3.5″, so I my cut pieces were 37 x 15 (two of those to make up the top and the bottom of the cushion) and a strip that was 66 x 4.5 for the sides and front band of the cushion and 36 x 5 for the zipper band–I cut that in half on the long edge to install a 36″ zipper to make the last section of the band, then attached it to the solid band piece. That meant I needed 100″ plus 10″ of piping x 2 to put piping on both the top and the bottom, if you’re still following along. (If you’re interested in more details for cutting or you’d like directions for actual construction, let me know and I’ll break it down further for you.)

Pro-tip: Always cut a little extra banding and make a little extra piping. It gives you wiggle room to fix mistakes!!

You don’t have to add piping to your boxed cushion, you could just box the cushion on the corners and have seams showing on the short sides and a zipper on the back side (I’ve done that to make a quick cover for something…no shame in doing it that way!), but I do like the piped box cushion look. To me, it looks a lot more finished and it isn’t that much more work! Let me know if you have any questions or ideas!!

That’s it for now!

Until next time, stop pinning and saving and start doing!!