Now you know that we know Christmas is coming, but as far as we are concerned it doesn’t start until after Thanksgiving. Now that Thanksgiving is over, we can go all out on the preparations!
This year, we decided to make some special Christmas cushion covers and have to share how – so easy. No zips or buttons or anything tricky like that. Just promise that you won’t show any people who are serious about their sewing and might be upset if things aren’t done properly? We love beautifully crafted items just as much as anyone else, but sometimes – for something that’s only going to be used for a couple of weeks a year – all that’s really need is a quick hack. So if you can keep a secret and use a machine to sew in a straight line, you can make these envelope-style cushion covers with minimal expense and effort:
Here’s how.
1. Get your cushion pads. We used some we had already had in the cupboard.
2. Measure:
We had two that were 23 inches square and one that was 17 inches square. (They were only whole numbers in imperial measurements, so that’s what we went with.)
3. Calculate:
For the big cushion we needed a height of 23 inches, plus 2 inches for seams, and a width of 23 inches x 2 plus 6 inches for overlap (this is the most complicated bit). So that’s 25″ x 52″. For the small one it’s 18″ x 42″. That makes a total we needed of 68″ x 52″.
4. Choose:
This is Fryetts Fabric ‘Vintage Christmas’ in Rouge:
(To be honest, we saw it ages ago – but didn’t buy it because Christmas doesn’t start til December, right?)
Furnishing fabric usually comes in widths of 54″ so we needed a length of 68″ (or 1.8 metres).
5. Cut:
Because furnishing fabric usually comes in lengths of 54″, we cut two lengths 25″ x 54″. That meant for the larger cushions the overlap of the ‘envelope’ would be a bit bigger, but the hemming would be easier, because of the selvedge, the self-finished edge of the fabric, which doesn’t fray. For the smaller cushion, we cut a length 19″ x 42″, because otherwise it would end with too much fabric wrapped around the pad.
6. Sew:
We put each piece face down turned down half an inch along the top and bottom, pinned and sewed.
(Always put the pins in at right angles like in the picture – that way you can sew straight over them and remove afterwards. If they are in lengthways, the needle will hit them and break – annoying, time consuming and possibly dangerous if you get a piece of needle in the eye.) The proper thing would be to fold the fabric over on itself, tack down and then sew, but for our purposes doing it this way was fine.
Then we turned in each side edge (selvedge) and did the same.
On a smaller cushion, you have to turn each side hem that isn’t a selvedge over on itself because otherwise it will fray and the strands will shed.
So now you have, for each cushion, a flat piece of fabric with all the edges turned in and sew down. At this stage, don’t be surprised if it looks a bit big!
7. Fold:
We laid it down, folded the left side in and then the right side on top with an overlap. The width should be the same as the width of the cushion pad. Then we pinned the top and bottom edges in place and sewed.
8. Turn:
We turned the cover inside out, slipped the pad through the gap and plumped up the cushion. The results are in the picture at the top of the page.
So that’s it, Christmas preparations have begun!
Holidays are coming, holidays are coming…
Hingham House 