Those of you who watch the Knitting and Sewing podcasts over on my YouTube channel will know that I bought a duvet set from B&M stores with the intention of using it for living room furnishings. I had a particular idea in my mind of a leaf printed table runner and sofa cushions which I couldn't find in the shops. What I did find instead was a double duvet set which did match my idea. Looking at it as a set of fabrics, I could see over 2m square of leaf print and co-ordinating plain, matching piping and two rectangular pillowcases which only needed a small amount of work to become squares. All for £18, so decided to use this instead.
I started with turning the pillowcases into sofa cushions. I buy my cushion pads
from amazon and found a pair that matched the width of the cases for about £11. I was aiming for a 18" square and used the pattern that I was given in my first ever dressmaking class to create an envelope cushion
(there's a link to the pdf and some videos on her site here). It wasn't as simple as chopping off surplus length to go from rectangle to square because I wanted to use the piping. What I did instead was separate out all the layers - print, piping and plain. Then I used these as pattern pieces. Also, not simple. everything was overlocked together and stitched in multiple layers, so once I had made it through one set of stitches, I found more. I had to use a stitch ripper instead of simply cutting through because I was trying to preserve the piping which was sparsely applied. Some time later, longer than I anticipated, I did have the pieces I wanted and could whizz it all through the machine.
Then I moved on to the runner. I braced myself for the stitch ripping and went about separating out the layers. In theory once this was achieved, all I was doing was stitching two long rectangles together with piping. In the store I had assumed 2m would be long enough. I had forgotten to account for the ends which hang down, so 2m was't enough. Instead of pattern matching pieces, I made the ends as contrast panels, reversible. It is accidental in design but I quite like the feature. It also means that I have 2 different looks available because I can just flip the runner over. I did also have to join together piping fabric so that would be long enough as well. Again, the final stages of sewing together should have been simple but the piping casing was meanly cut and I didn't always catch it in the seams despite the use of a million pins. It took a few times of turning through to the right side, seeing the piping was loose in parts, unpicking and restitching until it was presentable.
I also have enough fabric left over to make a set of quilted placemats...but for those I think I'll miss out the piping!!!
