Sewing Again

Since rearranging our living rooms, I've been considering purchasing some new cushions for the large sofa that now resides in the front room. The sofa is so large that it really requires either super large cushions or lots of them, for them not to appear insignificant.

Here's what the sofa looked like after I'd changed the room around. As you can see, the cushions on there look dwarfed by the sofa.

I considered buying two beautiful designer cushions from work.  They had been donated a few months ago and were in perfect, unused condition.  They were also made of designer fabric, a silk print to the front and lovely cotton velvet to the back.  The only trouble was, they were £40 each.  I know this sounds a lot, but originally they were £135 new, so they would still be a good buy.

The Manager put them aside for me and I thought about it for a couple of days, but when push came to shove, I just couldn't bring myself to spend £80 on two cushions, that might get ruined within weeks, by having wine or food dropped on them or chocolate smudged into them.  We're a messy lot here.

In the end I put them back on sale in the shop and decided I'd get some cheap ones from IKEA instead, then it wouldn't matter so much if they got dirty or damaged.

Anyway, this morning, whilst out with the dog I decided to try to make some new cushions.  Goodness knows I've got enough fabric, and I also had some brand new cushion inserts that I'd bought to make some cushions as presents, but never got around to doing.

I had a good look through all of my fabric stash and was really struggling to either find fabrics that went well together to make the front and back of the cushions, or that I liked enough to have in the living room. In the end, I decided to make the whole cushion covers from just one fabric.  I didn't make them removable as I didn't feel like fitting zips or making envelopes, so I just folded one side, sewed two sides using the machine and closed the final side by hand.  The cushion inserts are polyester, so the whole thing can be washed along with the cover when needed.

Here's a picture of the new cushions.

They still looked pretty small for the sofa, but the colour matched the room much better, as one wall is painted in a teal colour and there are lots of gold picture frames and a gold lamp in the room.  As a consequence of not feeling the look was quite complete, I headed out this afternoon and bought some large plain teal faux velvet cushions to accompany them.  They cost £12.99 each from TKMAXX and I'm much happier with the overall look now. What do you think?

I now can't wait to get my new sofa covers that I ordered at the weekend.  They were supposed to be arriving in 4 or 5 weeks, but I think they've now been delayed a month, due to the fabric being out of stock again. I'm hoping they come before Christmas, but if they don't it doesn't matter too much as we're not having visitors or anything as far as I know.

This was a much better solution than spending so much money on designer cushions, although it would have gone to a good cause.  Whilst I had the sewing machine out, I also altered a couple of scarves to make them into infinity scarves, so I now have two new scarves ready to wear when I next reach for them.

It felt quite good to get back to sewing again.  I don't feel like I want to attempt anything too difficult though, as I don't have enough free time these days, but just making something that is useful felt good. It did make me realise though, that I have lots of fabric that I am probably never going to use for one reason or another, so I can feel a big cull coming on at some point in the future. I'll keep you posted on that when it happens.