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Tutorial: how to make a simple zip-back cushion-cover

In my Absolute Beginners sewing class I teach students to set zippers using a simple zipper cushion-cover tutorial. The cushions are fun and easy to make and the students love them. I thought you might enjoy a tutorial, so you can make them yourself.

This method of setting a zip is a bit longer and more involved than some, but it yields a fool-proof result, which is important when you are first learning to sew. And even now, I’d rather use a technique that is always going to work perfectly than one that can go wrong!

For this tutorial you will need:

One 35cm/14 ” zip
1/2 metre of mid/heavy weight fabric cut into 3 pieces: one square that is 49cm x 49cm (19.25″ x 19 1/4″”) (for your cushion front), and two rectangles (for your cushion back) that are each 49cm x 26cm ( 19 1/4″ x 10 1/4″”)
One 18″ square cushion inner

Cushion front piece (left) and back pieces (right)

Step 1: Sewing the zipper seam

First, finish the two long inside edges of your rectangular back pieces with zig zag stitching

The two inside edges finished with zig-zag stitching

Now, lay your zip down along one of the zig-zagged edges, centering it on the piece of fabric. Mark the top and bottom of the zip (the top and bottom of the part that actually zips – so the metal and and the top of the slider) with chalk.
Centering the zip along the finished edge

Marking the top and bottom of the zip
Place your two rectangular pieces right sides together, with the zig-zagged edges aligned. Using a 1.5cm (5/8″) seam allowance, stitch down the seam, using a regular (2.6ish) stitch length as you start, backstitching at the top, stitching down to the first chalk mark, backstitching again, and then switching your stitch length to a long basting length stitch (4) to sew the section between the chalk marks where your zip will go. When you get to the next chalk mark, switch your stitch length back to a regular (2.6ish) stitch length, sew three stitches past the chalk mark, backstitch to the chalk mark, and then sew to the end of the fabric, backstitching again at the end.
Sewing to the first chalk mark with a regular stitch length (I’ve used 2.8 here)

Switching to a basting stitch (4) for the long section where the zip will be

Switching back to a regular stitch length (2.8) at the 2nd chalk mark for the final end section

The finished seam, with backstitching just before the chalk mark
Once your seam is sewn, press it open. Lay the zip along the seam, matching the top and bottom of the zip to your chalk marks, and carefully centering the coils of the zip exactly on your seamline. Pin the zip down.
The pressed-open seam

Laying and pinning the zip along the seam, checking that the coils exactly follow the seamline
Once your zip is pinned down, hand baste the zip through all the layers of fabric along the outside of the zip. For ease of removal, use a contrasting thread, and stitches that are approximately 1cm long. Once you have basted the zip on you can remove all of the pins.
Basting down one edge of the pinned zip

Basting back up the other side of the zip with 1cm stitches

The fully basted-on zip
In order to have a really easy guide line to follow, I like to mark my zips stitching line with chalk. Using a straight edge and a tailors chalk, mark a line on the right side of the fabric 1/4″ or 7mm from the centre seam line all along the zip. Mark off the top and bottom of the zip, just above the metal pull and below the bottom stay.
The line for stitching the zip marked with chalk
Now you are ready to machine sew your zip on. Using a zipper foot and a regular stitch length (2.4-2.8), start at the top corner of your zip, backstitch, and slowly and carefully, sewing right on the chalk lines, sew down the zip to the bottom corner. At the bottom corner, sink your needle, lift your foot, turn the cushion 90 degrees, lower the foot again, and sew across the bottom of the zip to the next point. Sink your needle again, lift your foot, turn your fabric another 90 degrees, lower your foot, and sew back up the other long side of the zip. At the top, turn another 90 degrees, sew across the top of the zip to finish it off, and backstitch.
Starting at the top of the zip, backstitch and sew down the first long side

Turning and sewing across the top of the zip to finish it off
Ta da! You’re zip is sewn on. Double check that your zip remained centred on the fabric, and is fully sewn on on all four sides, and remove the hand-sewn basting stitches.
The sewn-on zip from the back

The sewn-on zip from the front

Taking out the hand-sewn basting stitches
Now you can unpick the line of basting stitches covering your zip. Using an unpicker, carefully cut through the threads holding the seam closed.
The sewn-on zip with no basting stitches

Unpicking the seam that covers the zip

Checking that the zip opens
Finally, it’s putting the cushion-cover together time. With your zip partly open(that part is really important) place your cushion back (with the zip) over the square you cut for the cushion front, right sides together. Trim off any extra fabric, so that both sides are exactly the same. Pin your front and back together on all four sides.
Front and back placed right sides together

I have a little bit of extra where my back is wider than my front

Extra trimmed off, both sides are even and pinned together
Using a 1.5cm seam allowance (5/8″) and a regular stitch length, start at one corner of the cushion, backstitch, and stitch down one side. When you get to the next corner stop 1.5cm from the edge, lower your needle, lift your foot, and turn your cushion 90 degrees so that you can stitch down the next side. Do this at all the corners, until you come back to where you started. Backstitch, making sure that your stitching exactly meets or overlaps with your start point, so there is no hole in the corner.
One edge sewed down, lifting and turning at the corners

The sewn-together cushion cover
Now for your last bit of sewing. Set your sewing machine to a zig zag stitch and zig zag all four edges, lifting and turning your foot at the corners. Backstitch at the end.
Zig-zagging the edges

The cushion cover with all the edges finished with zig-zag stitching
Final step! Trim off all four corners so that the cushion will turn nicely, and turn it inside out. Press the seams, put your cushion inside, put the cushion cover in, and stand back and admire your handiwork.
The cushion cover with trimmed-off corners

The finished and pressed cushion cover

Now with a cushion – yay!

I hope that was fun and helpful! Let me know if you have any questions

Felicity approves

Rate the Dress: Purple, Orange & Green in the early 1870s

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week you were firmly in two camps about Worth Jr’s Arabian escape – either you loooooved it, or were really quite indifferent. As happens when there are distinctly divided groups, the actual rating is a score that few gave the dress: 8.6 out of 10. It’s certainly a step up for JP!

As long as we’re being brave, how about something a bit brighter? This English dress from 1872-75 from the Metropolitan Museum of Art combines lilac, palest spring green, with touches of vivid orange in a meticulously trimmed dress. Quite unusual!

Silk dress, British (probably), 1872—75, Metropolitan Museum of Art

As often happens, how we read the colours depends on lighting. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which option is closer to the real thing, and if you like either.

Silk dress, British (probably), 1872—75, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The touches of orange in the trim seem quite random until you see a detail of the dress:

Detail of silk dress, 1872—75, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Then it becomes obvious that the dressmaker carefully picked out the colour of the small orange flowers in the lilac silk, and referenced it in the trim.

Skirt details, silk dress, 1872—75, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bustling of silk dress, 1872—75, Metropolitan Museum of Art

What do you think? Was the designer right to feature the orange? Do the details make the dress? Is the dimensionality of the dress – structured and masculine from some angles, all poofs and frills and femininity from others, working for you?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

And enter the giveaway if you haven’t already!

Duck attack!

Published by The Dreamstress

My parents have flocks of ducks on their farm in Hawaii, and every time I go home for a visit I pester them to put a clutch of eggs on to incubate.

Their ducks are mainly khaki campbells and mallards, but they keep a few muscovy ducks (muscovy are to ducks what donkeys are to horses – they can breed, but their offspring will be sterile ‘mules’) as mothers. Muscovy are much better mothers than many other duck breeds – they are devoted nest sitters, and intensely protective of their young. My parents let their muscovys (and muscovy-cambell hybrids) create nests and lay a clutch of sterile eggs, and then they swap them out for fertile khaki campbell or mallard eggs.

On my last trip home they started a clutch of eggs the week before I arrived, to hatch the week I would leave. I waited and waited, and the darn things didn’t hatch. On my last weekend Mum and I went away to Kalaupapa (if you haven’t read that story you really must), and when we got back, there were the ducklings!

Muscovy-cambell hybrid with khaki campbell ducklings

Well, sort of. Mama muscovy was so protective we could hardly see them behind her, and she kept hissing at us. I leaned over the fence and cooed at her anyway, until a sudden rainstorm forced my Dad and I to flee for cover under a garden shed.

Sitting on the porch of the shed, looking out over the rain sweeping over the garden, I noticed something odd. One of the ducklings was trying to climb the fence. It was doing a good job of it for such a wee thing too – getting a good half a metre up the fence. What was it so desperate to get at?

When the rain ceased we went to investigate, and quickly discovered why the duckling was scrabbling up the fence: the poor thing had managed to get under one layer of fence, and was now trapped between the fine inner layer and the heavy outer fencing, with its frantic mother stuck on the other side.

I carefully reached down and extracted the duckling, Dad fixed the fence, and (of course) as long as I had a duckling in hand, I got a few shots:

Duckling! (with anxious mama behind me)

Oh, hello cutie!

Mama fluttered frantically during all this, scolding and hissing at us, wanting baby back. With pictures snapped and the fence secured, I leaned over the fence to put the baby down gently and then….

DUCK ATTACK!

DUCK ATTACK! (see that blur? That’s mama duck having a go at me)

Yep. Mama duck totally took me on – launching herself off the ground and using wings, beak and claws for all she was worth.

Evidence?

Duck scratches

I ended up with a bite on my thumb and some pretty reasonable scratches on my wrist, plus lots of mud.

Bites and scratches

Silly mommy duck. I was just trying to help!

(and a reminder, do enter the giveaway if you haven’t already!)