When a friend asked whether I could make cushion covers for his campervan I thought sure no problem. Little did I realise there were many large and small foam pads to cover with metres of fabric and new skills to be learnt. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I started with YouTube, watching tutorials on sewing boxed corners and continuous zips. Once again I followed the sewers mantra – measure twice, cut once and make damn sure you have the maths correct!
I was working with a royal blue waterproof/wipe down fabric which was surprisingly easy to sew and work with. It made nice sharp corners and holds its shape well. The minus point is that once you have sewn it, the stitching holes are set so you cannot unpick and move the seam without seeing where the original stitching was.
The zips are the trickiest part of the make. Getting the sliders onto the zip takes patience of a saint and I’m no saint. After an age getting the slider on, I check its working ok only to have it slide off the opposite end with me cursing and having to start again. Another tricky part is getting the corner seams inline when the zip is closed. I hate things not lining up but thankfully all corners have passed my exacting standards.
Part of the commission was to make a mattress that concertinaed and folded from three parts of foam to lie flat. After thinking around the problem, I came up with a solution to sew a piece of fabric in each side seam to connect all three cushions together. It’s hard to explain but hopefully you can see by the photos below that it worked.
Lastly, I was asked to make scatter cushions from a fabric that my friend’s Mum had given him years before. The fabric has a variety of Cornish towns and beach names, giving it great significance as the family are from Cornwall. Slight pressure as I had to get four cushion covers out of a metre of 145cm wide fabric. It took a lot of measuring and double checking before I was happy to cut this irreplaceable fabric. Making an error wasn’t an option. All good though and I wizzed them up in no time. Phew.
I had a strip of Cornwall fabric left and as a gift I made four placements which they can use on their campervan travels.
I am really pleased how they have turned out and luckily so is my friend. Although daunting at the start, it has furthered my sewing skills and given me the confidence to make the old sail bean bag for the garden that I have been meaning to tackle for the last 2 years. Watch this space.
Jay Dog Designs 