Base Sofa had attached cushions

and those attached cushions had zippers through which to remove the stuffers. Part of the reason the new bendable cushion was needed is the original design shown here automatically forced the cushions to bend. Once I removed and separately covered the cushions and simply rested them against the curved surface, they no longer conformed to the curve.

BEFORE .....Photography credit Judit Zombo, Walker La.

This cushion to be made in the next 45 pictures corrects the sagging height of the existing cushions. The new cushion will also improve how the back cushions fit into the curve of the sofa.

This series describes the making of :

A flexible, soft cushion, willing to stand tall and maintain an even fill pressure resisting gravity. Fits well into a rounded back sofa. Those before and after photos coming soon ! Stay tuned.

Peach color fabric is tracing of old cushion cover. You see writing on that pattern, tools we used, and the materials needed. Top center is Pellon bucram, 4" wide. Down proof ticking used throughout.

Top left see 4" wide scraps of peach fabric. This is used to help you see the action in this series, the unique feature of this cushion series is a hidden spine. The spine supports the cushions height.

Preparing to cut the three segments apart, at the vertical dash line.

These three segments will have a double boxing between them, sewn so as to behave like a hinge. That sewing will incorporate the Pellon Bucram, which will behave as a stiffener, or spine.

Our chance to inspect our instructions before moving these pattern pieces and mixing their orientation, are there enough ? Yes, it seems complete for this example. As it happens that two of the sections are identical. Your sample needs to make sense to you. Have you written enough identifying features ?

The layout. The down proof ticking is trimmed to the size needed, but not yet cut into segments. The excess allowed is for seam allowance and for extra size. Trimming more next.

The rectangular segments need only be divided evenly. The rounded edge at right bottom must be kept the original size, nothing added. Why ? To add would restrict how the cushion fits over the sofa arm.

I labelled my pattern just in case I forgot, never add at an inward cut away curve.

Ready for final cut away.

It is now easy to see where excess is allowed. That margin of white around the peach is 1.25".

Now before I lift the peach pattern away, what do I need to label next ? Though my two rectangular segments could be interchangeable, to develop good habits I will treat them as though they are not interchangeable. I will also label the WS and RS, as once pattern is pulled away, I might be confused.

Pencil marking WS and part. A, B, C. I could have added an arrow to indicate up and down.

There are indeed two identical cushions for this sofa. Don't be confused, though there are two, and they are mirror image both are made identically.

Studying yet again before I move them. Have I told myself everything I need to know ? As if these were handed off to someone else, I should have indicated up and down by arrow on each.

A crease marked A segment, and creasing B. Both halves can be creased at the same time. The crease is your alligment for your baffle. What is a baffle ? You will soon see.

Baffle, about 8 " wide, used to partition the cushion into further segments. We cut vertical segments, we are using sewn in baffles for horizontal segments. All in all, you will see 9 segments.

I now have enough experience to simply sew as I go, without first pinning, but this is for you. This is how each must look, you sew from the open ends, of course. Pin at first to avoid confusion.

From the front, baffles pinned. If you were to choose to do three baffles horizontally for making four segments, you'd be sewing the center baffle first.

Yes, it's easy to remember this as a capital H or a hanging shoe sleeve.

All the baffles are now sewn to all 3 segments. Yes, the stitches are pretty lined up. They are brown so you can see them better. Alligned creases are easy to manage, divide in even thirds and crease. If those stitch lines are not perfectly straight across, it has no functional consequence, it's just prettier to line them up.

Conveniently, having arbitrarily decided even thirds works for folding and creasing, our part C is looking good. At far right photo just below brown stitch line, see a 2" area of cushion. It's like a ledge above the curve. We will be able to fill this area with more pressure. This corner on most cushions collapses and seems empty. Our cushion will be properly full in this corner.

See brown knots. I thought I ended my stitching far enough in from the edge, I will have to pick a few out to procede.