How to Make your Own Cushion Covers Content from the guide to life, the universe and everything

How to Make your Own Cushion Covers

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Want an easy way to recover cushions, with little or no sewing and no zips? Then read on.

This technique works just as well with sofa seat cushions as with smaller regular cushions.

First obtain some fabric. It should be two-and-a-half times as long as one side of your cushion, and at least a little bit wider (if you are covering deep sofa cushions, allow a bit more all round). It is also a good idea to use fabric that you can clean in the washing machine .

Then, lay your fabric on the floor with the right side facing up. Place your cushion on top in the centre of the fabric. Make sure there is enough fabric on two opposite sides of the cushion to cover its sides, and trim any excess. You will now be left with a long strip of fabric with a cushion in the middle.

Next, remove the cushion. Hem the two shortest sides of fabric, placing the wrong sides of the fabric together. Don't panic if you can't sew; use iron-on hemming web tape instead. You can buy it from supermarkets as well as in fabric shops.

Then, laying your fabric on the floor again still right side up, place your cushion beside the fabric in the middle of its length.

Now for the good part. Fold over the two protruding lengths of fabric so they overlap in the middle, making sure the right side of the fabric is now on the inside of the cushion cover to be. The squarish shape you are left with should be just a bit longer than your cushion (if you are making covers for your sofa seat cushions, the deeper the cushion the longer the squarish shape should be).

When you have that right, sew along the two open edges; again don't panic if you can't sew. Just use iron-on sticky webbing tape again. When using webbing tape where the two lengths of fabric meet, you will have to hem twice to get webbing on both sides of the little piece of fabric in the middle. Turn the cover the right side out and place your cushion inside.

When recovering sofa seat cushions, you may have a little triangle of material at each corner left sticking out. If so, just turn the cover inside out and sew across the corners, then cut away the little piece of fabric left over. That should solve the problem.

There, you have a little or no sewing way to recover a tired looking cushion, and with the addition of a throw an inexpensive way to revamp an old sofa.

Happy sewing.


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