A Practical Sewing Makeover
September 17, 2025
Hi!
I hope you’ve enjoyed your week. This week I had to get practical, and whilst it’s not technically quilting-related, it was still sewing, and I thought you might like a quick behind-the-scenes look at one of my most recent projects. Maybe it will even inspire some practical-sewing of your own!
We’ve recently acquired a weather-proof outside couch set, but it came as is – with no cushions. It’s been winter here, and so on the odd occasion that we did sit outside, we just toughed it out and sat on the metal rungs. That wasn’t especially comfortable, and certainly not very pretty to look at!
We looked and looked for suitable cushions to add to our sofa set, but with no luck, so we thought about making our own. The cost of the foam for them was ridiculous, so Mr Online Quilt Magazine found some cushions saved from our old inside sofa, and they worked OK. They weren’t very pretty though, so I put on my interior decorator hat and got to work!
We bought some weather-proof fabric, and set to work, covering these cushions. I can’t give any patterns for this, but they were actually much easier to do than I feared they may have been.
I literally just measured around each cushion and cut a length of fabric to suit. Same with the sides – the width of the fabric is equal to the width of the front, plus the depth of one side, and a seam allowance.
Digging around in my stash revealed 3 long, chunky, (and as it turns out, quite bright) zips to use too.
I sewed the first side of the zipper to one end of the fabric length, the wrapped it around the cushion to get the right fit for where to sew in the second side of the zip. I ended up with a zippered tube like this:
With the zip at one end, I simply sewed down each side and over the zip ends (make sure the zip pull is undone part-way too!).
I folded the corners like so, and measured and marked the depth of the cushion (4 inches) across each corner.
Sew across and turn right sides out for a lovely neat boxed corner! (FYI – my fabric was pretty bad with fraying/ravelling, so I didn’t trim off the corners. No one’s looking at the inside, so I figured they could just stay in there.)
And here’s one covered cushion!
We didn’t have any cushions for the back, so I bought 4 big pillow inserts, and whipped up some covers for them too.
This is literally the quickest and easiest pillow cover ever!!
Measure a length of fabric about 2 1/2 times the size of your pillow x the width of your pillow. (For example, I had 24 inch pillows, so I cut lengths about 60 inches long x 25 inches wide. This allows a generous seam allowance.)
Fold up the short ends twice and sew to hem them neatly.
With right sides together, fold over each hemmed end so they overlap. Use a ruler to measure that your folded cover is equal to the size you want (24 inches), then pin and sew down each side.
Turn right sides out, add your insert and Ta Dah!!
And here’s our couch now, with make over complete!
It only took me a few hours to get all of that made, and I really couldn’t be happier with how they turned out.
And now that our weather is getting warmer, we’re out there every morning, sitting in the sun and enjoying our morning cup of tea. (Looking down to my quilty cabin in the back corner.)
As lovely as it is, sitting in the sun, isn’t getting much actual quilting done, so I need to finish my cuppa and hop to it! 🙂
Enjoy your week!
5 responses to “A Practical Sewing Makeover”
Leave a Reply
Welcome to our
Online Quilt Magazine Blog
Read through to discover hints and tips, articles from magazine contributors, sneak peeks and more!
Please enter your email address in the box below to receive notification of
new posts by email.
You did such a good job!
Thanks Cindy!
Thats great! thanks for sharing I have a similar job to do.
You did great. Looks professional. Thanks.
looks good