A Bench Cushion for the Craft Room

Deep into winter is a good time to get those projects done that you have been putting off since autumn.  When you can't go out due to ice and slippery, snow-covered streets, why not sit in your craft room snug and warm and sew?

I first had to cut the foam down to size with an electric knife. Sorry, no photos!  I couldn't cut and hold the camera.  I also used an old electric knife and it started to overheat right away trying to cut through the 4 inch foam.  The cushion was 21 inches wide and 72 inches long.

Then, I needed to find some white piping since I didn't have enough fabric to make bias strips from the decorator fabric.  Not finding what I really wanted on Amazon.com, I bought some wide bias twill tape at JoAnn's.  It was too thin.  I rummaged through my decorator fabrics and linings and found some white twill fabric that I could cut in 5 inch strips.  I used 12/32 inch cording (12 yards).
One package made enough piping for the top and another for the bottom.  I did not cut my fabric strips on the bias.  It had enough give to go around corners easily.

The next problem was finding a presser foot that would work on this project and my new machine.
After much rummaging though my sewing machine desk drawers, I  found a zipper presser foot that came with my machinge and borrowed a 1/4 inch quilting foot from a friend (it should have been in my accessories tin, but it was missing).  Here's a sample of folding the fabric strip over the cording.

And here's the zipper presser foot with the fabric and cording pushed up to the left side 

so the cording will be tight in the fabric casing. 

You then sew the piping along the cut edge all around the top sides both lengths and widths.

As you come to corners, you can clip the piping casing and keep the piping 

pulled back and upright to keep it from being caught by the needle.

Keep the presser foot up close to the cording in the casing as you sew around the corner.

When you get back to where you started, mark the place where the two cords meet. Cut the cords with the casing of one side pulled back.  Then turn under the ends and overlap the casing over the other side. Sew the seam. It would have been better to trim back the top one and overlap it since the presser foot was coming down from the top.  I was able to keep it flat, but it would have been "going with the flow" to have the overlap of the top part instead of the bottom.

That's enough for one day!

Tomorrow we will sew the sides together and onto the top piece with the cording in place.