I am happy to report that I have finally finished the two seat cushions for the outside chair I began at the beginning of the summer! It wasn’t the mission I had envisaged and of course, afterwards, I wondered why it had taken me so long to get round to finishing them.

Measuring the chair was the first task. I took care to make sure the repeat in the fabric to the front of the arched back matched the sides (it would be easy to cut a piece from the same fabric – in the same direction – only to find it ran the wrong way when viewed from the side). To do this I had to cut two strips along the length of the fabric (vertical) thus creating a seam from front to back along the top of the cushion.

Next I made up the correct length of piping using strips of fabric cut on the bias and piped through with cord. I sewed the piping to the front panels of each cushion before attaching the zips on the relevant rear/bottom panels. Next I sewed the side panels to the front panels (enclosing the piping).

Once the front panels were finished I sewed the remaining piping to the back panels, opened the zips (important!) and then sewed the front sections to the backs (again encasing the piping).

At each step I pinned the fabric in place around the foam and then took out the foam and sewed the pieces in place with my sewing machine. When it came to sewing the front to the back, the zip needed to be open so I could easily fold and remove the foam before sewing the final pieces in place.

Here are a few pictures of work in progress and the finished result:

It’s just a shame I didn’t manage to finish the cushions before Autumn set in. SCH