A 'blinding' cushion!

With all my repairs and mending out of the way now, I have no excuse to avoid getting on with a new blind for the kitchen.  As you know from ..... after replacing the windows I had to alter most of the blinds to fit the new frames.  Unfortunately though, one blind was just too short and too narrow for the new window, so I had no choice but to start from scratch.  Thankfully when we ordered the fabric we didn't realise that we'd be able to get two of the bay window blinds out of one length of fabric - so, we have enough spare for the new blind :-)

Trying to decide how I want the stripes to lie

But I really didn't want to waste the old blind (must be something to do with being brought up with parents who grew up during WW2!).  So I've decided to unpick it and use the fabric to make a cover for a cushion for our 'new' pew in the kitchen.

Following the advice of my friend, Bette Noire, I bought 2" thick 'recon' foam and 1" thick foam for the top layer. It was an added bonus that the supplier (amusingly called Pentonville Rubber!!  I've had such fun posting my visits on Facebook just to see what comments I'd get!! ;-)  ) was able to glue the layers together for me, and save me a job. With an electric carving knife, I cut the two layers to shape along the front edge - fun but bizarrely difficult to keep it vertical, so they're not perfect, but hopefully once covered no-one (unless they read this) will be any the wiser.

I made the top and bottom to match with the stripe going along the width of the bench/cushion and cut the strips for the sides along the stripes too, rather than across them.  It would mean that I'd need to be careful to stitch them carefully so that the stripes don't end up wonky though!

The edge strips were cut to be long enough to go around the front edge, the two short side edges and part-way around to the back edge.  The remaining gap would be made up of two strips, half the width of the whole so that a zip can be incorporated.  Unfortunately, getting a long enough zip in the right weight was a bit more difficult than I expected, so I decided to buy two.  It was a case of a) getting all the materials ready so that when I had the time, I could just get on with the job, and b) thinking (or hoping) that it may actually make life a bit easier to have two zips that meet at the centre.  We shall have to wait and see.

The zip section ready to
be added to the edge piece

I was undecided about what to do about the piping.  I was torn between having a contrasting bias binding (red or green - undecided there too) and making my own out of the same fabric as the rest of the cover.  In the end, I decided to stick with the stripes as a) I didn't think I'd be able to find the right shade of red/green bias binding and b) I had enough fabric left over.

First round of piping complete

Again following Bette Noire's advice, I practiced applying the piping on some scrap fabric as I'd never quite managed to get it right in the past.  It was a fiddle, but following a few attempts I decided to give it a go on the real thing.

It isn't perfect, but I'm quite pleased with the outcome.  And the pew is a lot more comfortable now :-)

Blinds and matching cushion on our chapel pew,
with matching collection box (hanging on the wall on the left!)