Beginner’s guide to reupholstering a sectional sofa: STEP FOUR – the cushions
Every cushion is going to be different so I’m not going to go through making the pattern to shape mine. I will tell you that I had six cushions that were five different sizes so I had to make five different patterns. For three of the cushions I measured the existing cushion and drew a pattern myself using my measurements. For the other three cushions I actually unpicked the existing cushion completely and used the fabric to cut out the new pieces and pieced it back together. The cushions I made my own pattern for actually turned out better but both types of cushions looked fine and honestly no one but me would even be able to tell which ones I did and which ones I unpicked and pieced back together unless I told them what to look for.
I will, however, tell you in detail how I did the cute tufting. Tufting with buttons is a little easier than tufting without. Here is how I did the tufting without buttons.
First I took the front piece and measured where I wanted the tufting by dividing the finished size in thirds and marking where I wanted the lines to be with colored pencil. Then I pinned 3/4″ strips of upholstery fabric in place (shown below).
I sewed all the horizontal strips in place 1/4″ from the edge, sewing all the way down. Then I sewed another line parallel to the first one, 1/4″ away from both the first line and the outer edge of the strip.
Once those were sewn in place, I started down the vertical strips the same way but when I got to where the horizontal strip was, I pulled the vertical strip out of the way while I sewed through the horizontal strip (shown below).
After I got over the horizontal strip, I put the vertical strip back in place and kept sewing.
From the front it looks like one straight, continuous line but from the back it creates a loop with the vertical strip. See below?
After all the strips were sewn into place, I sewed the rest of the pillows together. Once finished, I threaded through some black elastic.
I marked both ends of the elastic a couple inches from where it was looped through. (I did it 2″, use what measurement works for you and your pillows.) Just make sure that ALL of the tufts have elastic measured exactly the same so all of the tufts will look uniform and even.
After I had the elastics in placed and marked, I put the cushions in. Use a long, straight upholstery needle to thread the elastic through the pillows exactly where you want the tufting to be.
Once through, I stapled the elastic to a small, 4ish-inch donut-shaped piece of wood that came with my existing cushions that the other fabric had been stapled to. The wood keeps the elastic pulled through in place. I just made sure the markings on my elastic lined up with the edge of the wood and stapled the elastic several times into place. Then all of the tufts looked exactly the same and uniform.
The cushions are beautiful and my favorite part of the couch but they took FOREVER. Making 5 different patterns and sewing, assembling and tufting 6 cushions with 6 zippers took about 3 hours a cushion. It was definitely worth it but it took a lot longer than I had anticipated. I added some throw pillows and I was done!
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