dining room table protector pads
eric: this video’s brought to you by sailrite.visit sailrite.com for all your project supplies, tools, and instructions.in this video tutorial we’ll show you how to make your own window seat cushion. thisis essentially a rectangular box cushion. ours will incorporate angled sides on thetwo ends to fit our window seating area. watch this video then sew up your own cushion foryour home! you can pick from thousands of home dã©cor & upholstery fabrics from sailrite.all it takes is fabric, patterning material, high density foam, a zipper, piping- if desired-and thread. don’t have an industrial sewing machine? no problem! most home sewing machinescan easily sew cushion fabrics for your home. adding a window seat cushion is a stylishway to add a comfortable seating area that
adds beauty to any room.if the seating area were simply rectangular, we could just take a width and a length measurement,but ours includes angled ends. so we need to pattern for the seat’s shape. first weneed to take a measurement along the longest side and also a width measurement. now wecan use dura skrim pattern material and cut it to the approximate size of our opening.the dura skrim pattern material should be a few inches larger than the width and thelength because we’ll be cutting it down to size once we fit it into the opening andtrace around it with a permanent marker. because our opening is so long, we need to join asection of the dura skrim pattern material to itself to extend its length. we’ll dothat by taping sections together. now we’ll
take the dura skrim pattern material thatis slightly larger than our opening and place some sort of weights on it to keep it in positionand make sure that it stays perfectly flat. here we’re using magazines. now we’lluse a permanent marker and mark right along the wall edge of the dura skrim pattern materialand along the front edge. we’ll cut it out with scissors. we did not show that. thenwe’ll confirm that it fits perfectly in our area and mark the top side. this patternis our desired finished size of the cushion. take all the guess work out of patterningby using sailrite’s fabric calculator. we’re going to use the sailrite fabric calculatorto figure our rectangle pieces and our boxing strips and our zipper pieces. so we’ve alreadyentered our width and our length of our cushion
and our thickness, which is 3â€. we wantone cushion and our fabric is 54†wide. right here are all my dimensions for the foamand for the fabric. the yardage that i need and any other supplies that i need such asthe zipper or the thread, piping. if i scroll down a little bit farther i get the panelrendition, which is two rectangle cushions in the green. the angle of the window seatis not shown here; we have to cut that in ourselves. the two orange strips are my boxingstrips and these blue strips down here are my zipper plaques. eric: the sailrite fabric calculator not onlygives detailed measurements, but it also provides a list of materials that you can purchasefrom sailrite.
the sailrite fabric calculator app is freeon our website. but if you’d like to be able to put in more dimensions and add morevariables to your cushion, you can purchase that at the app store and you’ll get moredetailed instructions and the ability to put in more dimension in your cushions. eric: utilizing sailrite fabric calculator,we’ve ordered the fabric and supplies that we need for our cushion. now we’re readyto start. before i cut the actual measurements of mycushion, i’m going to cut this selvage off because i don’t want these pin marks inmy cushion. so i’m going to cut along this red dot that’s right at the bottom, andthen i’ll know i have a straight edge.
eric: using sailrite’s fabric calculatorwe can basically determine the required rectangular size of the plates for our cushion. i know that my cushion needs to be 128 â½â€long. so i’m going to divide that in half because my table is not big enough to cutthe whole piece out in one. put a pin here and then i’m going to fold my fabric inhalf to cut the other side of this cushion. eric: that pin that cindi inserted is thehalf way point for the length of our cushion. it is so long that it won’t fit on the table.so we’ll fold it in half. it’s folded along the pin; that’s the halfway point. i have my fabric folded with my pin rightin the center here, and i’m going to double
check my measurement before i cut anything.that looks good. so i’m going to mark the depth of my cushion, which is 21 â½â€. eric: the sailrite fabric calculator sayswe need to cut the plates width to 21 â½â€. here’s a helpful diagram that may help withthe anatomy of a box cushion. we’ll be referring to these phrases throughout the video. theactual desired finished width is 21â€. the extra â½â€ here is added to the plates. aâ¼â€ extra for all sides of the cushion. i’m going to need two of these pieces soi’m going to go ahead and measure the second one before i cut. eric: our seam allowance for this cushionis a â½â€. so you may be asking yourself,
“why is only a â¼â€ being added to eachside?†we’ll discuss that after cindi explains what she’s doing next. i’m just going to put a few pins in thesepieces to hold them together while i’m cutting them. first i’m going to cut out the rectanglesand then i’ll put the angle of the window seat in it. eric: the reason why we’re only adding â¼â€to each side of the cushion is because we want the cushion’s plate to be slightlysmaller in size than the foam to give the cushion a nice and tight fit over the foam.we’re using scissors here to cut the fabric because it’s faster. but if a hotknife wereused, the edges would not unravel as much
as you’ll see throughout this video. it’syour choice. now i’m going to lay one on top of the otherso that all the angles are the same with the wrong sides together. eric: the two short ends of our window seathave angled edges so we need to cut that in. we’re going to pattern that next. so put a few pins back in these two pieces.i have the two pieces wrong sides together on the table. just a couple pins to hold themtogether, and use my pattern. we’ve got the top marked, and i want to cut this thesame way with the top of the pattern up on the right side of the fabric. my piece willbe cut a â¼â€ bigger all the way around.
so i want to allow for that â¼â€ here andhere. eric: the pattern we made earlier is placedon top of our rectangular fabric that we cut to size. she’s making sure that the patternis a â¼â€ from the two long edges, and then she’ll pin the pattern material down ontoour decorative fabric. the decorative fabric two pieces have been laid on top of each otherand pinned together. so we are going to make exact duplicates. so i’ll also add a â¼â€ along this angledseam. eric: as discussed earlier, a â¼â€ shouldbe the extra fabric all around the perimeter of our decorative fabric on both the top plateand the bottom plate. cindi is cutting through
both layers of fabric- the top plate and thebottom plate, that is. the top plate is facing up and the bottom plate is facing down. sothe wrong sides are facing each other. because this fabric is super long in length, she foldedthe one side that’s done so that she can put the other side on top of the table. theyshould match up with each other exactly. they’ve been pinned together just like we did on theother side. we did not show that. this end also needs to be a â¼â€ bigger than our pattern.the pattern should be a â¼â€ from the long sides as well. she’ll pin it in place, marka line/strike a line, and then cut along that line just as we did on the other end. nextup, we’re going to use match up marks. they’re kind of important for long cushions like this.but they’re also useful for smaller cushions.
cindi will explain. okay i’m ready to take my pattern off. i’mgoing to put some pins in my two pieces to hold them together. my next step will be tomake some marks in these two pieces so i have a guideline of where to sew everything backtogether. i want to do that on this one because it’s such a long seam so that i can keepeverything lined up as i’m sewing. eric: the two plates must be matched up perfectlyon top of each other. so i’m going to fold it in half on top ofeach other and mark the center at the front and the back of the cushion. when i stitchthis i want to start at the center and go out and around and here and down.
eric: at the folded locations, a match upmark is cut out of the fabric. then the next one i’m going to just guesstimatehalf way between the end and the center and… eric: these match up marks are typically trianglescut no deeper than the seam allowance. you do not want them to go into your seam allowance. you’ll want these to be much deeper thana â¼â€ because our seam will be â½â€. the same thing on the backside of the cushion. eric: okay, what will these match up marksbe used for? well, when we finally add the last plate to the assembly in chapter 8, wewant the plate to match up exactly to this one. these match up marks will help us accomplishthat task. this is especially important for
long cushions like this. our plates are done.we can remove the pins. next we will cut the boxing. this is the front band and a portionof the side bands for the cushion. my boxing strips are cut at 3 â½â€ accordingto the calculator. so i’m going to cut those the complete length of my top plate and bottomplate along the length of this piece of fabric. eric: the suggested positioning of the boxingis shown in the sailrite fabric calculator’s panel rendering. it’s shown in yellow here.we will be inserting high density polyurethane foam in our cushion that is 3†in thickness.as discussed earlier, we will be sewing a â½â€ seam allowance. adding only a â½â€to our boxing may not seem logical, but it is. here again we want the boxing to be slightlysmaller than the width of our foam. so the
â½â€ seam allowance will be removed fromboth sides of the boxing when the plates are sewn to it. so our final width of the boxingwill be slightly more than 2 â½â€ when completed for a nicer, tighter looking cushion. so i’m going to fold this. then i can justcut along this edge and not have to measure the next piece. i need two of them that length.so i’m going to put just a few pins in this to hold it in place while i cut. then i’mgoing to do the same thing with this piece- fold it up. eric: since our boxing is so long, cindi foldedthe portion that she measured and cut to size. she used that to continue cutting the lengthalong this fabric. so this is just a shortcut
that she’s showing you. we skipped ahead.both boxing pieces are cut out. one of these strips i’ll cut in half toadd onto each end of the longer one. eric: by cutting the one strip in half, we’reassured that we’re not going to have a seam in front of our cushion. it’ll probablybe off to the sides this way. so she joins one half to one end of the long strip andthe other half to the other end of that same long strip. they’re pinned together so theright sides are facing each other. we will sew a â½â€ seam allowance there in a laterstep. next up, our zipper plaque. there is the boxing strip. eric: a zipper plaque is typically the backedge of a cushion where the foam is inserted
and the zipper is zipped shut to conceal thefoam and allow access to insert the foam in the cushion cover. our zipper plaque is 4 â¾â€ wide so we’regoing to cut that across the width of the fabric. if you look down here, we need threeof them. eric: zippers can be done a variety of ways.we have other cushion videos that show making zipper plaques differently than what is shownin this video. here we took our cut size boxing- for us it was 3 â½â€- and we’ll add thewidth of the zipper. our zipper is about 1 â¼â€ wide. so here we are cutting our zipperplaque width to 4 â¾â€ wide as the sailrite fabric calculator says.
i’m going to cut one of these in half (oneof the three) and add it to the other two. so i have the correct length for my zipperplaque. so i added the half width to each end of the two long pieces. now i’m goingto pin the two long pieces together. so i end up with the seam in the center and thenbalanced on each side for this zipper plaque. it’s going to be a little bit longer thanwhat i need, but i can cut it to size after i start working with the zipper.i’m ready to sew the zipper plaque pieces together so that the zipper is long enough.so i’m just going to do a â½â€ seam here and back stitch at each end. eric: outside surfaces are facing each other.cindi is sewing about a â½â€ from the raw
edge of the fabric. she’ll join all of thezipper plaque pieces together. our zipper is 1 â¼â€ wide approximately. so half ofthat is about 5/8â€. our zipper tape, or our zipper seam, we wantto be 5/8â€. we have a â½â€ and â¾â€ mark on the machine. so my zipper tape is 5/8â€.i’m going to center that and my needle and then i know where the 5/8†lands for mymagnetic seam guide. so i’m going to snug that right up against the zipper for my 5/8â€seam. i’m going to switch the stitch length over to 8mm so it’s a nice long stitch andit’s easy to take out after i get my zipper in.this is the full 4 â¾â€ width of my zipper plaque. i’m going to fold it in half sothat these cut edges meet. this is where i’m
going to do my 5/8†seam. i’m going toput the fold up against my magnetic seam guide, keep these two edges out here even, and usethis long stitch to stitch this together. eric: half of our zipper is 5/8†so thisstitch is placed 5/8†away from the fold. seam confusing? well it won’t be shortlyso keep watching. when i come to the seam i want to open thisup so that it’s not so bulky. make sure they stay opened up when it goes underneaththe foot. eric: we highly recommend the deluxe 5 â½â€magnetic sewing guide, as seen here. we are sewing this up with the sailrite fabricatorsewing machine and power stand with a workhorse servo motor available from sailrite.
i have my cushion plate. i’m going to foldit in half to determine how long i want my zipper plaque to be. so this is the back edgewhere the zipper will be installed. remember this is a little bit longer than what we needed.so i’m going to trim it to size now. so we have a seam here at the center back, andhere’s the back corner of my cushion. we actually have a lot more than we needed. wereally didn’t need to add this part on. i want this to come around the corner maybe8†or 10â€, which’ll make it easier to get the cushion in. so i’m going to trimthese off, and this piece here will be the length of my zipper.this is my 5/8†seam right here where that stitching is. i’m going to slide the scissorsinto that fold and cut that open all the way
the length of the zipper. i’m going to cutthis slowly and make sure that it remains half on each side so that my zipper will haveenough fabric to catch when i stitch the zipper in there. we used the calculations on thesailrite fabric calculator to cut the zipper plaque size and the band size. you can seethat when you make the zipper that way, it comes out exactly the size that you need tomatch your boxing strip. so after i’ve cut it open i want to usethe ruler to flatten out this seam nicely so i can put my zipper in. you can also flattenyour seam this way by pulling it along the edge of the table. eric: we want our stitch length to be about4mm-5mm for this cushion so that’s been
reset. now we can sew the zipper in place.cindi’s sewing along the left side of the presser foot so that the presser foot is upagainst the zipper’s teeth. it can also be positioned on the right side of the presserfoot, which would put the stitch a little bit closer to the teeth. that would probablybe my preference, but it’s not a big deal. it is important to keep the zipper positionedover the splayed open section of the fabric underneath. if it’s cut accurately, it shouldbe almost the same width as the zipper itself. the zipper can be cut as the same length asthe zipper plaque (the decorative fabric). then when we reach the end, do some reversingto lock the stitch in place. now we can sew the other side by starting on the other end.be sure to sew on the same side of the presser
foot as you did on the first stitch so they’reequally spaced from the teeth. be sure to hold the zipper down flat as you sew thisside. since it’s already held in position, we can sew rather quickly. now this is the stitching that we did withthe really big stitches to hold this center nice and straight. i can snip this open toopen up the zipper underneath. just be careful; cut stitches and not fabric. eric: we’ll set the zipper plaque asideand the boxing. now we’ll concentrate on how to make piping. this is an optional stepfor your cushion. so the app shows that i need 621†of pre-fabricatedpiping. i’m going to make my own. so i’m
still going to need that amount of fabriccut for my piping for this cushion. i’m ready to cut my bias strips for my cording.i like to cut this on the bias because it goes around the corners a little bit better.it lays a little bit smoother. that would be a 45 degree angle. so i’m using a ruler;the 45 degree line is right here along this cut edge of my fabric. i’m going to usethe rotary cutter and start my first strip. eric: simply squeeze the handle to engagethe blade. the blade will automatically retract when the handle is released. i want to cut these strips at 1 â½â€ to endup with a â½â€ seam allowance when i’m ready to sew.
eric: we’re cutting this decorative fabricalong the bias. placed underneath the fabric is the self-healing rotary cutting mat. itis important to use that to keep the blade of the rotary cutter nice and sharp. we’realso using the clear acrylic ruler. you can see that my fabric is too wide forthe ruler now. so i just fold it up in half along this straight edge and continue cutting1 â½â€. eric: the comfort grip rotary cutter, theclear acrylic ruler, and the self-healing cutting mat make a great combination for cuttingfabric applications like this and more. piping is optional. we’re making enough pipingfor both the top side and the bottom side of our cushion.
when i stitch the piping together, i wantthese two straight edges to be like this where i have an angle here and an angle here. i’mgoing to stitch from the angle to the angle with about a â¼â€ seam there. eric: she pins these sections together sothey can be sewn in a later step. any selvage edge is cut off and they are cut to the appropriateangle. she’ll explain that now. in order for this to work, these two angleshave to be going the same direction. eric: one strip is placed on top of the otherso outside surfaces are facing each other and you have the dog ears, as you saw earlier.they’re pinned together, and continue doing that until you have all of your piping stripspinned together. now these strips can be sewn
together. the stitch is about a â¼â€ fromthe edge of the fabric. no need to do reversing at the beginning or the end for this. whenthe strip is folded around the piping, it will secure that stitch. thus, no reversingis necessary. because we did some chain stitching, when we’re done sewing all the strips together,all we need to do is trim the thread that joins each one of the strips side by side.there’s what a finished strip looks like. to sew the piping, or cording, we need toinstall a cording foot. here we are installing the â¼â€ cording foot for the sailrite fabricatorsewing machine. we set our stitch to about 5mm in length. this cording foot has a tunnelthat accommodates the piping. we’ve inserted the medium 5/32†welting cord inside ofour strip and are now sewing it in place of
the stitches right alongside of that piping.this is one of my favorite cording’s. it’s made from polypropylene so it doesn’t soakup water and it’s very flexible. any seam should be splayed open as cindi’s doinghere. we’re using the coats extra strong nylon upholstery thread, available from sailrite.when sewing cushions in upholstery for indoor applications, nylon thread is best used sinceit stretches and conforms when the cushion is sat on better than polyester thread. however,polyester thread lasts longer for outdoor applications, and thus, its best for cushionsused outdoors. i’m going to attach the piping to the backsideof my cushion, which is the narrower side. here’s the mark that i made for the centerof my cushion. so i’m going to start the
cording right around at the center spot. leavea couple inches before i start stitching. eric: those couple of inches or more willbe used to join the piping together when it’s sewn all the way around the cushion. when i come to this angle, i’m going tocut a little slit in my cording right up to the stitching so that i can work it aroundthat angle and stop my machine at the cut. eric: this cut was placed in the flange ofthe piping. lift the foot up a little bit and turn mycording. then go down this angle. this edge right here is a bias cut so try not to stretchthat as your stitching. eric: anything cut on the bias of the fabricwill stretch more than on the warp or the
fill. now we’re coming up to a corner thatis very drastic with a very sharp turn. watch what cindi does here. when i have an angle that’s this sharp,i usually do two or three cuts to get around this one. eric: she’ll sew up to that corner abouta â½â€ away from the other edge of the fabric, bury her needle, lift her presser foot, androtate the fabric around pivoting on that needle. then she creates a very sharp turnwith the piping. the piping turns so nicely mainly because it’s that soft polypropylenepiping called medium welt piping available from sailrite.we’ve skipped ahead and here we’re coming
to the other very sharp turn. so several slitswill be made in the flange of the piping to help it to make that turn smoothly. she’llsew up to the corner, stop about a â½â€ from the corner, needle’s buried, foot is lifted,fabric assembly rotated, piping positioned, foot lowered, and then she’ll continue tosew. awesome corner! let’s skip ahead to where the piping needs to be joined togetherto the opposite end where we started. when i get back around to the area where istarted, i’m going to cut the piece that i’m still sewing on about 3†longer, undothe stitching on that area, and i’ll undo it right up to where that other piece ends.cut off the cording so it meets with the other piece. then i fold this piece back so i havea bias edge right here, or an angled fold.
then i can lay this piece down inside of itand fold it around it. then you don’t have a whole lot of bulk right here with all theseams laying on top of one another. they’re sort of separated so they’re not all fallingon top of each other. eric: now she’s sewing over the stitchesthat began to sew our piping in place. she can stop there. before i go any farther, i’m going to findwhere i made my notches originally and cut those into the piping also so that i can seethem a little bit better. eric: if your top plate and bottom plate bothhave piping, which is optional, you should sew it onto that second plate as well. let’smove on and now discuss our boxing.
these are the two pieces i’ve pinned togetherfor my boxing strips so i’m going to do a â½â€ seam on each of these before i applythe boxing to the cushion. eric: our boxing strips were very long inlength so we need to join two sections together. that’s all we’re doing here. i have my boxing strips sewn together withthe two seams. this long piece is going to go across the front of my cushion. so i’mgoing to match up the two seams. eric: she’s finding the center of the boxingalong its length. and cut notches where the fold is to lineup with the notches that i’ve already cut on my cushion.
eric: these notches are the center locationwhere we will sew it onto the center of the plates. so here’s the notch on my cushion and thenotch on my boxing strip. i’m going to lay those together and stitch out and around thisway and then out and around this way. eric: this boxing goes on the front side ofour cushion. outside surfaces are facing each other. the notch in the center of the boxingis lined up with the notch in the center of the plate along the front edge. here we’reusing the cording foot again because there is piping underneath this assembly so we needthat tunnel again so that we can keep our stitch very close to the edge of the cording,sometimes called piping. we’re going to
skip ahead to a sharp corner again. when i get to this sharp corner area, i’mgoing to make cuts in my boxing strip also so that it will go around that corner, maybeabout 3/8†in and two or three or maybe four. eric: same process. sew up to the corner,needle’s buried, foot is lifted, assembly rotated, foot lowered, and then continue tosew. notice the super slow speed control of the sailrite fabricator sewing machine withthe workhorse servo motor. this is accomplished not only because of the servo motor, but becauseof the stitch pro balance wheel with posi pin. it’s only available at sailrite. ifyou need a great sewing machine like this,
check out the sailrite fabricator at www.sailrite.com. this is the back corner of my cushion righthere. i remember that the zipper is going to come down about that far or so into thisangled seam. so i’m not going to stitch any farther on this side. i’m going to leavethis loose and then trim it off when i put my zipper in to make it fit without havingto measure it. now i’m going to go back to that center spot on the front where mynotch was and sew the other direction. eric: same procedure sewing the other direction.we’re not going to show all of this. now our boxing is on the underside and our plate’son top. but it’s exactly the same procedure as shown before so we’re going to skip aheadhere. oh, before we skip ahead here, let’s
show what to do at this sharp corner. we needto cut some notches in the boxing there so it can take the bend. i don’t mean to brag,but take a look at the slow speed control. all she’s doing is stepping on the treadle.she is not touching the balance wheel. notice that she can do a half stitch at a time hereso that she can easily maneuver around this very sharp corner without having to touchthe balance wheel. now we can move ahead. here’s the back corner on the other sideso i’m going to stop about 8†or 10†from the end of that corner because my zipperis going to come down here also. eric: it’s now time to grab the zipper plaque. i’m going to apply the zipper to the backin the same way. this seam right here is the
center of my zipper, and here’s’ the centernotch on the back of my cushion. so i’m going to line up the seam with that centercut notch. eric: here she’s coming to a gradual bend,or turn. only one slit needs to be made in the zipper plaque boxing for that. skippingahead slightly, we’re coming to the section where it needs to be joined together to theboxing. so you can see that my boxing strip is a littlebit longer- a lot longer actually. i want to make a little pocket here for the zipperso that the end of the zipper isn’t stressed when we put the cushion in. so i’m goingto lay the zipper on top of the boxing strip, pin just the zipper and one layer of the boxingstrip together, and just bring that area over
to the needle. eric: in order to bring this over to the needle,she stops short of where it joins together by several inches so that she can do thisstep now. this will be my zipper stop. eric: that was cut out of some of the scrapfabric that will need to be cut away. she folds it in half and then lays it on top ofthe end of the zipper. she will do some reversing at the beginning, sew through the zipper carefullyso that the needle does not deflect and also that stop she placed down, and then do somereversing at the other end. then i can trim all of this extra off rightthere at the end of that seam and finish stitching
this open area with that fold to protect theend of that zipper. eric: since we started sewing the zipper plaqueon at the center location, now that it’s sewn on on this direction, we need to reversethe assembly around and sew the other half. so i’m going back to the center where istarted at the seam and the notch and i’m going to stitch the other direction. eric: this is basically the same procedure.then when we get to where we need to join the zipper plaque to the boxing, we’ll stopshort by a few inches and follow that same procedure yet again. so i’m going to do the same thing as i didon the other side (give myself a little bit
of protection there from the end of the zipper).this side needs the slide on it. eric: a very important step. don’t forgetto place the slider on before you sew the end of the zipper closed. when installingthe slider, make sure the puller is facing the right side of the fabric. so i only have the zipper and one layer ofboxing strip pinned together. eric: since you’ve already seen this done,we are not going to show the full process here. so we’re going to skip ahead. nextup, we’re going to join this assembly to the final plate. first we’re going to makesure our match up marks are visible and transfer them to the boxing.
so in order to use these notches that we’vealready cut into the plate of the cushion, i want to mark it into my boxing strip. soi’m going to trim it into this one. use that same little triangle that i’ve cutout before. then to transfer it over to here, i want to fold this back and make the samecut here so that i have that notch to use when i applythe plate on the other side. so i’m going to do that all the way around on all the littlecuts. this center one i already have one because i marked that when i first matched up my centers. eric: once all of those notches, or matchup marks, are placed on our boxing, we highly recommend using seamstick for canvas â¼â€.cindi’s going to discuss that now.
we’re going to use the â¼â€ seamstick bastingtape and apply it to this other plate so that it’s a little bit easier to… it’ll holdit together when i’m sewing. it’ll eliminate the need for any pins. try to keep it awayfrom the piping a little bit so it’s not under the needle when you’re stitching. eric: the â¼â€ width is perfect for upholsteryapplications for that reason alone. now i use the marks that we’ve cut- thelittle notches that we’ve cut- in our plates and our boxing and match those up. becausethis is such a long seam, it’s hard to keep everything in line. but with these notches,i can match up the notches and work from there. eric: since we are using the seamstick topre-baste the assembly in place, we will be
assured that our last plate will fit perfectlyin place before we start sewing. we don’t have match up marks at the corner, so watchwhat cindi does here. on this corner, i’m going to fold the cornerback on itself with the seam even. then i can notch out here. that needs to land outhere on this corner. eric: if we were not basting or pinning, thematch up marks could be used as we sew the assembly together to ensure a good match.a professional seamstress would not use pins or basting tape. the basting tape is going to hold everythingin place for me. eric: but we highly recommend it for anyonethat has not done a lot of sewing.
i can do the same thing back here- fold thisback on itself so the seams line up out here and then make a notch over here. that littlenotch needs to land on this corner. remember we have this part folded under to protectthe end of the zipper. then i can do the same thing on the back. my seam was my center andthere’s my notch. so i can match the notch up with the seam and press it in place. eric: another great benefit of using the seamstickâ¼â€ basting tape for canvas and upholstery is that if you baste something down and somethingdoesn’t match up or it’s slightly off, you can peel it up again and re-baste. since this edge is all basted down all theway around with the basting tape, i don’t
have to start at the center and go out. i’mgoing to just start at the center back and go all the way around. eric: since our cushion utilizes piping orcording, our cording foot is still installed on the sailrite fabricator machine. here we’recoming to a slight curve, or turn. notice how slow we can go. we bury the needle andpivot the assembly then continue to sew. the speed control of the fabricator sewing machinewith workhorse servo motor is simply controlled with the foot treadle. push down gently onthe treadle and the machine can sew one stitch at a time. push down firmly and the machinesews fast, but will stop almost instantly as soon as you release the treadle. the finalplate is sewn together. now she unzips the
zipper and starts to turn the assembly rightside out. in the process of turning it right side out, she carefully checks the cornersmaking sure that the piping looks good and the corners sewn well. if she sews too faraway from the piping, she can always re-insert it back into the sewing machine and correctthe issue. ours looks great. because our cushion is so big, we have toglue sections of foam together. then we also have to cut it to size. that’s next. sailriterecommends using a high density polyurethane foam for window seat cushions. however, thefoam length is not long enough to accommodate our window seating area. so we will glue sectionsof foam together using sailrite’s foam lock spray adhesive. this is a rather inexpensivespray glue that works great for gluing foam
together- a common practice in the upholsteryindustry. after spraying both surfaces, feel the glue to be sure that it is tacky beforeyou bond the foam together. try pressing both halves together uniformly. once it’s beenbonded together and pressed together, the glue will hold permanently. now we have asection of foam that’s large enough to cover our area for our window.we’ll go back to the sailrite fabric calculator and check out the dimensions of the foam.our general guideline for cutting foam is to add 1% to both dimensions, but never addless than a â½â€ to one dimension. the way i like to do this is by taking the longestmeasurement for the side and end and multiplying those by .01 and dividing that by 2. thisis the amount i will add to each side and
each end. for our foam, we will add 5/8â€to the ends and â¼â€ to the long sides. the patterning material has been laid on the foam.here cindi is measuring over 5/8†from the pattern material. she’ll do that on bothends- 5/8â€. this is for our cushion. here on the sides, we need to add â¼â€. so thepattern material’s a â¼â€ from the edge of the foam. here along this side she marksit a â¼â€ larger. so the foam is slightly larger than the area it sits in because whenthe cover is placed on it, it will compress it slightly.we’re using a permanent marker to mark the foam. after it’s been marked, we use a straightedge and strike lines. notice here on the ends, this is where we need to add 5/8â€for our cushion. we are measuring perpendicular
from the edge of the pattern material. thenwe’ll strike lines there as well. to cut the foam, we’re using the acu-cutter350. this is a special foam cutter that’s available from sailrite. cutting directlyon top of those lines we struck on the fabric. you can also cut the foam with an electrickitchen knife. it is true that a high density polyurethane foam is a little bit more difficultto cut. if you do not want to invest in one of those expensive foam cutters, you can usean electric kitchen knife as we are here. but be careful to try to hold the blade asstraight as possible when you’re cutting the foam.we’ve opted not to use a polyester batting on the top side of our foam. the batting wouldhelp round off the corners slightly, and it
can help fill loose fitting covers that maynot be made as precisely as ours is. to insert the foam inside your cover, you’ll haveto push the foam into the edges and into corners by inserting your hand inside the cushioncover. a second helper can help with this job. you can expect to have to insert yourhand several times and pull the fabric into position so that the foam is resting rightwhere it should be. take your time and be patient. when you have everything in placeand you feel like the corners are filled with the foam appropriately, you can start to zipthe cover shut. when we made the zipper plaque, we made a fold over at the end where it meetsthe boxing so our slider rests neatly inside of that fold.our window seat cushion is now complete ready
for the window seat opening. coming up nextis the materials list and the tools that we used to make this window seat cushion. justbecause we used an industrial sewing machine to sew our project doesn’t mean you’llneed one. typically most home sewing machines can handle cushions like this easily. thefigures shown in yellow is the quantity of items we used for the cushion shown in thisvideo. do it yourself and save more than 50%-60% of what fabricator stores will typically charge.the cost of materials including the high density foam for this cushion was under $250. to getstarted with your next diy cushion project, simply take a few measurements of the areawhere you want the cushion. then enter the measurements into the sailrite calculator.now you’re one step closer to beginning
your cushion project. to see more videos likethis, be sure to check out the sailrite website or subscribe to the sailrite youtube channel.it’s your loyal patronage that make these free videos available. thanks for your loyalsupport. i’m eric grant, and from all of us here at sailrite, thanks for watching.