The Couch Part 2: The Cushion Cover

This is part two of a three-part story. Again, too many pictures for one post, and a lot of explanation...three posts will make life easier.

To recap:

My brother, Dr. Lou Feurino, has just opened a private practice. He is a Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, and working towards becoming an analyst as well. His practice specializes in combination treatment with talk therapy and medications, if needed, for help with problems relating to mood, anxiety, substance misuse, impulsivity, attention, interpersonal relationships, self-harm behaviors, and other issues. Dr. Feurino is trained in cognitive-behavioral, dialectic-behavioral, and psychodynamic psychotherapy, along with the use of medications and the detection of general medical problems that may mimic psychiatric disorders.

My brother needs a comfortable couch, but the cushion that came with his was more uncomfortable than the floor, so I made him a custom and extremely comfortable cushion.

the finished cushion

Now on to how I made the nice, soft cushion cover:

Like the rest of this story, nothing really went the way I had first intended for it to go. I was teaching myself how to do a cushion of this magnitude, and was researching daily to make sure I was giving my brother the best possible solution, all the while learning new techniques and tricks. This is why I love doing things that I have never done before, though there may be frustrating setbacks, the challenge and excitement of doing/learning something new is so fun to me.

For the cover's material, we had originally picked out a cotton fabric. However, as I continued my research I realized that this wasn't a very sturdy choice, and probably wouldn't hold up in the long run. So I ended up picking a sturdy upholstery-quality deep blue micro fiber suede (made of polyester) that my brother approved. I bought 5 yards of that material which, even on sale, was not cheap. I knew that working with this fabric was going to be a little difficult and tried my best through this process to not mess up with this fabric. I made sure that I had a little extra fabric, just in case, though at that price I wasn't going to get a whole bunch more (not even an extra yard).

five yards of a nice deep blue micro fiber suede

I decided on making a boxed cushion cover, again this was something completely new to me. I understood it in theory (I'm the kind of person that can look at at finished piece and pretty much figure out how it was made) but I had to do a little research just to make sure I was on the right track.

Once I had figured out my plan, I had to make templates for the seven pieces that I had to cut. In my original plan my pieces were a little thinner because I didn't yet know what the size of my cushion would be. This is my original sketch (drawn before the cushion was made, thus why some measurements are missing):

my original plan of the cushion size and the seven pieces to cut (minus a few measurements)

However, when I took the original measurement of the cushion, I came up with 29" W x 82.5" H x 5.5" D. This meant that my original sketch was a bit off, so on I went to make the template based on these new measurements. The first pieces I made were the top and bottom, which I made 30" x 83.5" each, the next two pieces were the long sides, which I made 6.5" x 83.5" each, then one short side piece I made 30" x 6.5", and there were two pieces for the other short side (because it has a lapped zipper), which I made 30" x 3.5" and 30" x 6.5". Originally I had planned on having a .5" seam allowance, but it became apparent on my first fitting that I had allowed for too much depth on the cushion, and I had to take the seams in additionally to a total of a 1" seam allowance at each seam. This is because when I took the first measurement of the cushion, I allowed too much room for the edges' curves, and in reality the cushion ended up being more like 27"W x 82"H x 3"D.* Because I had already sewn the long sides I took in the seam like I mentioned above, but I hadn't yet sewn the short sides, so I was able to trim them down to 28" x 2" and 28" x 3.5".

*I had anticipated something like this happening, so I chose to err with bigger measurements rather than taking them as small as I thought they should be, just in case I was wrong, which is why my measurements kept changing. Now that I have done it, I know where I could have tightened my measurements a bit, but I still live by the saying MEASURE TWICE CUT ONCE! I swear I'm going to get that tattooed on my body somewhere.

this is what the template looks like on the cushion (as you can see, it's a bit loose)...and yes I made it with
newspaper, no it's not the "funnies" section, oddly enough it's made of multiple "Career Builder" papers

When sewing, my first steps were to sew the top piece to both of the long sides, right sides facing each other. Then I sewed the bottom side on.

the sides sewn on, connecting the top and bottom pieces

the first fitting proved that I had to take in the fabric by using 1" seams on all sides

the second fitting was perfect and snug

Inside of the cushion, I tucked the seams and sewed, giving a nice side detail to the cushion to keep the flaps of the seams out of the way.

detail of the long sides, the stitching makes the cover look fancy

I then started on the zippered end. The reason that I started with that end is because I could unzip the zipper and still flip the cover inside out, therefore allowing me to easily finish the sixth end, and not needing to leave out any seams. And it's easier to be able to work with my hands on both sides of the zipper to make sure everything is laying correctly. Zippers can be tricky. To sew the zipper, I first prepped the pieces by folding the raw edge over and sewing, then folding over a second time and sewing again, this way when the flap covering the zipper is lifted, no raw edges will be seen. I did this to both pieces, however I made a larger fold on the piece with the flap seeing as it would have to be long enough to cover the zipper. Then, with the zipper zipped up, I centered it on the non-flap piece, and pinned and sewed, moving the zipper to an unzipped position to get my machine to sew around it (which you totally understand if you have ever sewn a zipper). If you haven't sewn a zipper (and especially a lapped zipper), check out this quick little video to see what I'm talking about:

The fabric I used was thick, and the zipper head was huge, so I had a little more trouble than the girl in the video, but it wasn't horrible. I might have cursed a few times.

After sewing the lapped zipper, I now had a unit made up of the two pieces of fabric and the zipper, which I then sewed to the first short end of the cushion cover.

lapped zipper

showing the opening and function of the zipper

I then sewed the other short end of the cushion cover (with the zipper un-zipped so that I could turn the over inside- and "right side"-out.

The cover was now completed! The explanation seems a little more simple than doing felt, but that's only because again, I had never done anything to this magnitude before (especially not with such heavy fabric).

Stay tuned for the third and final post to this trilogy, where I'll show how I made the plastic cover and the custom detachable pillow and then I'll show you how it all came together. :)

If you, or anyone you know, would like to be in contact with Dr. Feurino, please email him at LouFeurinoMD@gmail.com.

The Couch Part 1: The Cushion

This is going to be a three-part story. Not only did the cushion and cover take me a while to complete, but I have a ton of pictures and there is no way that they can all fit into one post. So this post will describe how I made the cushion for my brother's office couch.

A little background:
My brother, Dr. Lou Feurino, has just opened a private practice. He is a Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, and working towards becoming an analyst as well. His practice specializes in combination treatment with talk therapy and medications, if needed, for help with problems relating to mood, anxiety, substance misuse, impulsivity, attention, interpersonal relationships, self-harm behaviors, and other issues. Dr. Feurino is trained in cognitive-behavioral, dialectic-behavioral, and psychodynamic psychotherapy, along with the use of medications and the detection of general medical problems that may mimic psychiatric disorders.

This of course means one thing above all else: He needs to have a very comfortable couch.

Like the wonderful sister I am, I undertook the task of designing and making him a custom cushion for his office couch. Additionally, I designed the cushion's custom cover and custom detachable pillow. My brother paid for the cost of materials as well as labor, so really I'm only sort-of-wonderful. But the cushion turned out really nice and is very comfortable to lay on.

Making the cushion:
The couch's surface area measures 27" x 82". If this seems long to you, think of it as more of a chaise...or even, think of a typical analyst's couch. It is however a really large cushion size. The template is a basic rectangle, but all of the template and pieces are my own design.

The reason I had to make a new cushion was because the cushion that had come with the couch was ridiculously uncomfortable. So when picking out the material for the cushion, I (and especially my brother) tried out multiple solutions. We came up with a combination of materials to make up the cushion. The base is made of 2" foam, followed by a store bought fiber-fill mattress topper from Target, cut down to the size of the foam. This was followed by two layers of a store bought fiber-fill comforter from Target, again each layer cut to the size of the foam. I used spray adhesive to keep the fabric pieces laying nicely on each other and so they won't bunch up when people sit/lay on them. The cost was pretty high but my brother was committed to making this cushion something that people would feel very comfortable laying on.

the foam and a layer of the mattress topper 

the foam, a layer of the mattress topper, and two separate layers of the comforter

the cushion with layers adhered together 

Then, I covered the cushion with batting to hold everything together. My mom helped me hand stitch the batting onto the cushion. Typically, you wouldn't need to sew the batting much (or at all) but because I needed something to tightly hold the cushion together, I needed the stitches.

top, bottom, and side of cushion with batting sewed on

Later on down the line, as I was making part of the cushion cover, I was taking it on and off of the cushion for fittings so many times that I realized the batting wasn't going to hold up to much more abuse. So I went to Jo-Anns and bought 5 yards of sturdy (yet inexpensive) muslin to make a permanent gusseted cover for the cushion so that it will last for a long time. This muslin covering will allow the cover to go off and on without any problems or worry that anything will fall apart. I cut two pieces (the top and bottom) at 27" x 82", purposely not including a seam allowance, because the muslin needed to be tight. I pieced together the rest of the fabric so that I could make sure that the grain of the fabric was going in the same direction as the top and bottom, and this piece became the gusset (this won't be seen, so piecing together wasn't an ugly option). The width of the cushion ended up being about 3", so I cut this gusset piece to 4", thus having .5" of seam allowance on each side. The length ended up being roughly 220". I laid down the "top" piece of muslin (there was no "right" or "wrong" sides for this fabric) and, starting about 1/4 down one of the long sides, I pinned the gusset along, making an overlapped fold at each corner. The reason I started a little farther down the side was so that the gusset would have a nice gathering at each corner (it would be hard to make the corners look nice if the gusset started at the corner).

maybe this drawing will help you visualize

first stitches sewn of muslin cover, side and "top"

I sewed this, did a fitting which was perfect, and then sewed the "bottom" layer to the other side of the gusset, again making sure to make a nice fold at each corner.

pinning the "bottom" of the muslin cover to the side (notice the pieced together seams)

I left one short end un-pinned except for the corners, then sewed, leaving that end open for me to put the cushion into.

the created muslin cover with end open to slide cushion in

I flipped it right-side-out, and put the cushion into that cover, then hand stitched the cover shut at the short end. The cushion was finally done!

Here's how it turned out:

the finished cushion with fitted muslin cover

I know this was a long post, I hope it was somewhat informative. Read about the making of the cushion cover in my next [long winded] post, soon to follow!

-Victoria

If you, or anyone you know, would like to be in contact with Dr. Feurino, please email him at LouFeurinoMD@gmail.com.