Cushions: a tutorial-fest

Hello m’dears.

Over the next few weeks the button ship will be calling at the pillow port, since I want to record for posterity all the sewing I did while waiting for baby button.  The recording needs to happen before baby button chunders on them or colours them in with a felt-tip.

I made a lot of matching-but-not-matching cushions for our very beige living room in the hope that it would liven things up.  I was allowed to have pink(!) and green, and Mr Button even picked out the fabrics for me, kudos.

All the designs are mostly from tutorials by other wonderful sewists (to whom I owe much gratitude and links), and one is a knock-off of a cushion I saw in a shop.  I'm going to share with you links to the tutorials and hopefully some handy tips while I'm at it.  I'm afraid I'm going to stop short of full illustrated tutorials for the changes I made because I didn't take photos at the time and it would just be too much to draw diagrams for this lot!  I'll explain the cushion button backs though.

The fabrics are some raw silk (or synthetic imitation) and some heavy striped cotton which came from Dunelm Mill and a selection of quilting cottons, cream cotton and heavy cream curtain lining which came from John Lewis.  There's also a bit of grey suiting from my stash.  I like to buy my fabric in person and these shops just happened to be within striking distance.  They're not especially my favourites for selection or price.

The cushion pads were bargainous: these are duck-feather pads from Dunelm Mill and the price scales by cushion side not by volume, meaning you get more feathers for your money the larger you go.  I really like my cushions heavy and firm, so the cushion covers are a good few inches smaller than the basic pads.  That's why you'll see them bursting at the seams right now, and hopefully not looking too deflated after a few years of heavy use.  They're really quite weighty; I'd totally recommend getting yourself down to Dunelm Mill for these!

Quick links to my posts on each cushion below:

• Cushion backs (here)
• Cathedral window cushion (here)
• Tree cushion (here)
• Pleated cushion (here)
• Button cushion (here)
• Sprocket cushion (here)
• Chrysanthemum cushion (here)
• Bobble cushion (here)

To all the people who made these awesome tutorials available free on the internets: thank you!