now i'm going to show you how to make your oh so lovely couch cushions the cushions have a nice piping along the front and sides and then a pull over in the back which is sewn in with three buttons the back is the left over material from the old couch. because i didn't end up having enough of the pattern i picked out in stock my husband picked out this design. i think it's really nice. it's an argyle and paisley cross
which i think matches the funky style of the couch how i got most of my ideas for how to reupholster a couch cushion is from joquena's site at modern homemakers so if you want to follow along at her link as well then you'll have lots of good tips in finishing your cushions leave a good three-inches' all the way around except for in the back what i'm going to do is i'm going to put about
a foot and a half of material in the back so that i can fold it over nicely now you're going to want to cut out three different sides. go ahead and tilt it up and then with your marker i put a dashed line now that you have your four pieces cut out then its time to get ready for the piping
i'm going to go ahead and use the piping thatalready came with the couch and since its an old couch the piping is delicate so when you're taking it out of the material you don't want to pull, you just want to cut it out. i'm going to real carefully cut it out when cutting out the piping be sure and leave a couple inches on eitherside this'll give you some room to makemistakes. next what you are going to do
is cut out a length of material insert the piping, just fold it over and then pin it real tight up against the piping and then you are just going to come by with the sewing machine and sew as close to the piping as possible now that all three piping pieces aresewn i'll show you how to insert the piping in to the main material alright so i have one side of the cushion done with the piping sewn in
and how you're going to accomplish this is taking the side piece make sure it is upside down and that thetop piece is right side up. align the bottoms of these together. take your stick pin and tack it there. so you can easily insert the piping. make sure you have the bottoms lined up and the top piece is not going to go anywhere because you have it tacked in to the cushion fold up the top piece
it is good to place your piping a little bit longer on the sides so that you can come back and sew them together properly so make sure that the piping is facing the middle of the cushion and fold over the top piece here take your straight pins try to pin it so that it is very tight against the piping when you go to the sewing machine try to sew along the tops of the pinned line
so it will be right up against the piping. so you'll have a nice tight sewing line. and you see how the piping is so nice and tight in this area where you can't really see any of the strings but in other areas it is too loose and looks a littlesloppy just go ahead and fold it back over and in the places where it was loosely sewn run it through the sewing machine again
tighter and closer to the piping andthen it'll come out looking the same. for the two front corners i'm going to pin them together all the way down the line and sew them now that you have the corners sewn in, don't worry if it doesn't line up just right becausewere going to go back and fix it later. but one more time flip it inside out
pin it all the way across and sew it. but i'm going to leave the bottom un-sewn because the flap is going to come around and button it together so you don't need to worry about that at this point. i cut the piping a little bit longer in the front than on the side taking my dark thread
and start sewing them together try to loop it around several times so that the thread makes a kind of a corner i'm going to take the cover off and tie it underneath the top part i have the back of the cushion all ready to be ironed in to complete the process, i'm using sewing tape insert the tape all the way around just tuck it under the flap there.
and then using it on steam settinggo ahead and iron that in now the flap is ironed in the only thing left to do is just sewit over the buttons where each button is at make a little slit because i'm going to cheat and not make button holes slip the button under that sew it together
i'm going to repeat the process for thenext two buttons and then i'll show you the finished product heres the finished couch. it came out well (by my standards anyway) i covered the body of the couch with a dark purple fabric redid the cushions in a paisley fabric and i repainted the woodwork in a white color.