Cushion Rejuvenation Session 5: Shaping the Cover

We need to give our cushions some dimension and gusset are fantastic for that. It will give these two flat pieces of fabric sides, and a top and a bottom. So the whole thing will lift and it will look fantastic. And it's going to be a nice tight fit around our cushion because we used our worksheet and we measured very well. So the first thing I want to do is open my zipper up all the way, and I'm going to start with the two gussets over here. So when you're doing this the zipper ones are the hardest, so we're going to start with these two and you do one corner at a time. So I'm going to pull this corner into the middle here, and I am going to try to shift this around so that I'm kind of pulling and stretching, see what's happening here? I'm going to go ahead and pull this corner out too. Now my corner I've now pulled it all the way out and if I open this up right here you can see that my side seam is now like right on top of my bottom seam okay, And the whole point is to get those to match perfectly. So I mean they feel like they kind of match, so that's good we're halfway there, let's peek up here a little bit. I can see my corner stitching right there okay, so I wanna make sure and pull that out. And that means I might have to scoot this down because I want that corner stitching, I want it to come right up to this point and on this fold that's where the turn should happen. So if I flip it over, you can see that I'm pretty much right on there okay. So it still feels like these are correct but here's how you check it, you wanna make sure that this stitching right here which you can barely see because it's white on white, is exactly on top of this stitching right here okay. So what we're going to do, is we're going to take this pin and I'm going to put it straight through all the layers of the fabric, just like that. Now I'm going to flip it over and see how close my pin is to the seam. Oh I got lucky this never happens to me, it's right on, do you see how my pin came right out through the stitching there okay. So in this case, we don't need to make any adjustments, we're just going to simply fold this little flap over the pin and hold it just like that okay. Now we're going to spin it around and do the other corner. All right so first of all let's find out, oh, look at that. So this is where the fold is, but if I fold it over look at where my point is, it's way over here, do you see that? So we've got to make an adjustment for sure, so let's pull this out and this has to come down and then we kind of have to smooth this down and pull this out, okay just like that. Okay, so let's see if that looks better comes up here, turns the corner. And now you can see that the full, this is right a good right angle, right on that fold. See that fold going in there, so now we know we've got it. All right so let's test our pin, here's my pin. I'm gonna go ahead and put it right in the stitch line, I'm going to push it through all the layers and now let's check and see what we have on the other side. Oh, well I'm way off this time look at that. Okay so now my top seam is over here right, 'Cause that's the one we stuck the pin in. That means my top seam has to move over this way right, so that's the one thing you have to remember the top seam has to go that way. Okay top seam goes that way, I'm going to pull this pin and I'm just going to kind of flip the fabric, I'm going to roll the fabric a little bit this way 'Cause I know my top seam needs to go that direction. Then I'm going to re smooth I'm gonna recheck my top and make sure that still looks good, and now I'm going to give it another test. Right through the stitching to the other side, and let's see, I'm getting closer. I still need to make a little bit of an adjustment, so we're going to continue to roll. Now the other one I was laughing so hard because it's such a fluke that you get it right the first time because it's difficult to get these to match up. And of course I've done this a million times and you can see how much trouble I'm having with it so. Now look at that, that is like what a 16th of an inch away that's perfectly acceptable. It doesn't have to be right on the money like my other one as long as it's close enough within like an eighth or a 16th of an inch is plenty fine. You will still get the shape that you want out of your gusset. So I'm going to leave that there and I'm going to go just like this. Okay so now I'm going to flip this out of the way because we have to somehow do it with this crazy looking thing all right. So first of all, we're going try to poke our corner out, I'm going to go ahead and close this just a little bit. Now in this case, I want my zipper to be right on that seam does that make sense? Now We can't do a pin test, but what I can do is I can peek through my zipper teeth see that I'm just basically putting my zipper teeth on either side of that bottom semen there okay. So now I'm gonna pull and smooth this I'm gonna just kind of peek under here and make sure I have that all the way out. I feel like this needs to come down just a little bit like this peek under there. Okay so there's our stitching and this line goes right up to it so we look good there okay. And it looks like that looks pretty good. All right that's nice and smooth I know I'm good there. And my zipper teeth, if I just peel it open see it's right there with the seek, so I think we're good to go. Now we can't put the pin right in the seam this time because there's a zipper here and it won't hold anything together. So what we're gonna do is we're just gonna pin down here like this off to the side, to prevent this from shifting around okay. All right we have one more to do I'm gonna flip this around, we'll flip this one out of the way. We're gonna wrestle with this one. Now this one I saved for last 'Cause there's no zipper head here and we can't zip it up because we want to leave it open. So we have to, now that we're experts at putting this through the zipper teeth check here, that looks pretty good on that side. All right I think you can just see my seam right through my zipper teeth, I'm going to try to make it so that the teeth meet right at that scene. We're going to smooth everything out and then we're going to pin it just like this. Okay so we have all four of our corners pinned in this weird triangular manner. So now we've got to sew these, before we do that we have one more measurement to get. So I'm going to pull my worksheet back in here, we have to figure out what our gusset measurement is going to be okay. So here's Y that's 3.5 okay, divided by two is going to be 1.75 okay. So now we know what our gusset measurement is going to be, but what does that mean? 1.75 I'm going to remember that, I'm going to put this over here and let's start with an easier corner we'll start with this one. Making sure you use your iron off pen or a chalk pencil, we are going to take a measuring tool and we're going to measure 1.75 inches down this seam. Now you noticed from our worksheet that 3.5 is how wide we want it, so when you do this gusset business, you divide that number in half. So when you're using gussets to shape a bag for example if you want the gusset to be four inches you would fold it like this, and you would measure down two inches because that's half a four, and then you would get a four inch wide side of your back. So we'll just move this guy out of the way, this needs to be 1.75. Now I'm not sure if you can see this very well because it's white on white, but you can see my stitching runs right here and it kind of falls off right there on the fold okay. I am going to start measuring that point right there where the stitching falls off on the fold, so it looks like this. So I have my ruler right against the stitching, I'm gonna show you the wrong way you don't want to put it all the way up here, this is very common. This will not give you the correct size gusset and your cushion will not fit, it has to be on the stitch line on the seam okay. So we have one and a half there's 1.75, I'm going to make a Mark right there. Now using the straight edge of my ruler, I'm going to put this just like so making sure I'm as perpendicular to the stitch line as possible. And I'm just going to scribble a little Mark all the way up cross okay. Now this one is going to be pretty easy to do as well, so Oh my pins on the other side Let's, Ooh that's the zipper we're saving that one for last. Let's flip around and do this side. All right, so now it's on the other side which is fine, I'm going to hold it over here 1.75 is right there, and then we're going to turn this sideways and scribble all the way across. Okay now for the tricky part, so first of all this is hard to see because this seam allowance is open okay. So what you can tell is if I just kind of stick a pin right in the tip through there, see that I'm doing it right in the tip of the stitching. I can kind of peek through here and see where the stitch lines come together, here let me see if I can show you this. Okay so here's where my stitching is coming together so I'm going to put a pin right through there, that is my top line. See that, that's where my stitching starts, so I can actually use that to start to measure with. So now I'm going to put this right up against that pin, just like that. And 1.75 is right here, I'm actually gonna have to draw my line right there okay. And of course we didn't have very much room for error right past this guy right here right past our cleat, so this looks good. We're going to draw this all the way across over here, all right I'm going to pull this pin so I don't hurt myself later and now we're going to flip this around and do the same thing over here. So I'm going to find where my stitch lines meet up looks like it comes right there and right there. So I'm going to put it right in the corner, that's where I'm going to start to measure from right there. So I'm going to hold it steady, start right there down to right here. Oh, that happens to just be that line right there, that's funny. 1.75 right there, now look what's happening on this end. I've gotten zipper teeth in the way okay, is this going to be a problem? Heck no, I'll show you how to sew right across them with no fear okay. So we're going to leave these pinned and now it's time to sew them. All right we're going to do the easy ones first, save the hard ones we'll build some excitement here. Okay, here's my line I'm gonna sew across, I'm gonna raise my foot and I'm gonna lower it down and I'm gonna get my needle right on the line. Lower my needle, I wanna make sure that I'm at two and a half and then I'm going to back stitch, I'm going to sew all the way across the line, and then I'm going to back stitch on the other side as well. Okay, this little guy is sown. So now that he's sown I can pull that pin out and then I'm going to swivel it around and find the next one. Make sew right down that line. All right there's number two, I can pull that pin out as well. All right let's see that's the teeth one, we'll save that one for the end it's the most exciting one. Okay here's number three right down the line. Now all I'm going to do is so over the zipper tape here so that's no big deal. Don't forget to back stitch at both ends you don't want to hold in your cushion corner because you forgot to back stitch. All right so that one's happy I can pull these two pins out. All right time for the zipper. Now I said earlier that if you wanted to buy a longer zipper it would be perfectly fine to use a longer zipper. If you do that, you're going to run into this problem on both ends of your zipper okay. It's fine just make sure that your zipper head is inside the line when you sew since we're going to cut the zipper. So what's gonna happen is I'm gonna begin sewing right on the line. I'm going to do my back stitch and I'm gonna sew as close to the zipper teeth as I can possibly get. Okay that's close enough, I don't want to break my needle. So you have two options, you can either skip over the zipper entirely or you can use your hand wheel to negotiate the needle between those metal teeth and then all the way into the fabric to come out for a stitch okay. So I'm going to attempt to negotiate first, Yep look at that, okay so you can't see this but my needle is right between two teeth right now. When you go slow like this when your needle starts to come down your needle is shaped like this, right? In a microscopic way, it will find its way between those teeth and if you go nice and slow it will gently slide right between them. And then you can continue, see there I go and there's another one. Okay now I'm at the point where I can't go any further, I'm going to hit something okay. So I'm just going to make a nice long stitch over the zipper and skip it entirely. If you don't break your thread then this is just fine to do. Now the thing you have to remember is for the thread to flow through your machine so that you have a nice long stitch, this little metal guy on top of your machine that goes up and down with the needle It's also controlled by your flywheel. He needs to be up when he is up you can lift your foot and pull the fabric when this guy is up the thread flows easily through the machine. When this is up, it means that your thread is not wrapped around your bobbin. Have you ever tried to finish a project and you lift the foot and you try to pull it out and it's stuck? Chances are this little arm is not at its highest point which means your threads wrapped around your bobbin which means it's stuck, which means you're just gonna pull until you break it basically. All right so I'm going to go ahead and get my first stitch in with my flywheel now that I've moved past the zipper, and now I'm in I'm just gonna get a couple stitches here. I'm safely past the teeth, I can continue right to the end. Do my back stitch just like that. All right, let's pull this out, trim the threads here and pull these pins out, okay. Now let me just kind of shake this out. Okay this is looking better, we kind of have some hype here right. But we still have all this weird extra bunny ear type stuff going on, so we're going to trim this off. We're gonna start with this corner here, Kind of pull it back out a little bit so that it's flat. All right so this stitch right here has to be cut you have to cut above this, but see how we have a half an inch seam allowance here? Here's the whole reason we have seam allowance see how I'm pulling this and this is fraying and it's coming out. This will eventually get tangled with use and it won't fray anymore. But just to be safe, we're gonna sew a half an inch away from that raw edge so that our scene doesn't come falling out of there. So we have to follow that same thing over here. When we cut this, we want to make sure that we at least leave a half an inch worth of seam allowance in place, just like that okay. So we've got that one cut, and I like to cut on the side where the line is drawn so I can see what I'm doing. Now over here we don't have to cut any of the zipper teeth because luckily it's a half an inch away see that. But what you would want to do if you have to cut the ends of your zipper off like this, what you want to do is you want to clip on this side, right between the teeth like that. Then you're going to come around this side and clip right between another tooth like that. Then the fabric is separated okay, then the only thing you have to do is kind get those teeth kind of apart from each other and it'll come right off, so very easy to do that. Okay this is looking like a cushion cover, right? Let's turn it right side out and see what we've got. All right so here's our gusset, now look, now we have a side. See how cool that is? And look our zipper goes right up to it, that is wonderful because it's kind of tough, this is going to be a nice tight fitting cover. So when you have a big long zipper then you don't have to try to squish your cushion and shove it through a small zipper for it to expand in there. If you can get your zipper to be the entire length of your cushion. So we're going to push out all of our lovely gussets here, get our corners out. Oh my gosh, this is going to be so very cute. All right last step, now that looks like that's gonna fit pretty nicely, right? Last step is to dress your cushion, so we're going to try to shove this guy in here. Now like I said, it's gonna be a tight fit, so be patient and make small moves. So I'm actually gonna stand it up like this and kind of squish and I'm gonna take a bite out of the zipper like this and I'm gonna turn it over. You kind of turn your cushion into a little taco. All right now we've got most of it in there and I'm just pulling really slow, I don't want to pull any seams out or anything strange like that, even though back stitching is awesome. Talk this guy in here, all right lets flat him out. We want these seams that are on the edge here to be right in the middle of our sides. That one looks pretty good, that looks pretty good, that one looks good. Okay now all that's left is to zip it up, check that out a nice cushion cover and it fits perfectly. So when you are picking your projects for this please make sure that you hang on to this worksheet because this does all of the work for you. As long as you measure your cushion properly and even if you're off by half an inch, the nice thing about the cushions is that they'll squish, right? So you can always use this worksheet to get any boxy shape just like this to fit something that you already have. So now that you know how to measure your cushion, you know how to figure out your yardage, you know how to cut a zipper if necessary, and you know how to put the zipper in so that it can be based in and then you can have a nice stitch all the way around. I think you're ready for your first cushion project, enjoy.