Pillow Covers

Old and New
Old and New

The last time I recovered our couch cushions was about 16.5 years ago. We were staging our flat for sale and I found some fabric that matched the our futon cover. The futon along with its wine grapes and hydrangea cover were jettisoned last year when we bought the new couch. We use our cushions. They don’t get tossed out of the way when we sit down, so now the current covers not only don’t match, but are worn through in places. See that blue and white peeking through? That is the previous cover.

Pathetic, I know.

It has been time to make new cushion covers for awhile. I needed to make three. The sizes are

  • 20″ x 18.5″
  • 23″ x 18.5″
  • 21″ x 22″.

Several months ago I went to Joann, coupon in hand, and bought some home dec fabric that was suitably grown up. Since I am still in small project mode, I decided that I would work on them over the Labor Day Holiday.

I did it. I made 3 new cushion covers. Making those cushion covers has not changed my mind about what a pain in the neck new cushion covers are to make. You see my various rants about the Teacher pillows, which is where I spent most of my cushion cover making time in the recent past. Suffice it to say, what should be an easy project always has a problem. I am glad I don’t have to do that any more.

Tissue paper on Fabric
Tissue paper on Fabric

The major problem this time was the fabric. The home dec fabric I bought turned out to be a really loose weave. My machine really had a hard time with it and wouldn’t feed it properly. I pushed, pulled, put a new needle in, used a walking foot and nothing worked. Finally I tried tissue paper, as suggested by one of the Twilters. That made the fabric feed through the machine. I’ll have to remember that. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it as I have done that before.

WonderClips & Tissue Paper
WonderClips & Tissue Paper

In addition, pins wouldn’t work on this fabric. Good thing I had WonderClips, otherwise, I don’t know what I would have done.

This was very strange fabric. The loose weave, which didn’t look loose, meant that I had other problems as well. The fabric raveled like crazy. I know that some of the seam allowances aren’t large enough and I expect these covers not to last for long. I couldn’t poke the corners of the covers out with my knitting needle, because it went right through the fabric. Guess how I found that out? If I had known, I wouldn’t have bought it.

I did try lining the seam allowances with fusible interfacing, but it didn’t help the feeding through the machine problem. It probably would have helped the raveling problem, but I didn’t think of lining the whole cover until it was too late.

Finished Cushion Covers
Finished Cushion Covers

Well, at least they are done and they match. I can think of my next project now. I think I’ll go for red next time. I’d better start looking for fabric now.

Author: Jaye

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.