The post about WHAT TO DO with an old baby glider cushion

Does anyone out there have an old beat up cushion or pillow they can't think of what to do with? All you need is a beat up cushion, some fabric, and some extra stuffing to repurpose it into a new, better looking pillow!

The glider that we had for the kids broke because my husband started using it to sit in when he played video games and he leaned back too far and it cracked, ( Thanks a lot) but we continued to use it until it was completely broke. I threw the cushions in the wash because it was a fairly cheap chair and the cushions did not have a case to take off and wash, you have to wash the whole thing and I'm currently storing the broken chair in the garage. I still need to think of something to do with the broken chair pieces, but I can't come up with anything good yet. Anyways the cushions came out all deformed and ruined so they couldnt be reused or recovered for a new glider. I didn't want to throw em out so into the random box of craft crap they went UNTIL I found this tutorial for a pillow cover and it just happened to be my aunt's birthday so my opportunity to make some throw pillows arrived.

From this:

   To this:

Originally I was going to make a pillow shape and just stuff it, but I didn't have much stuffing on hand so I dug out the old glider cushion and crafted away.

Here is an idea for re-purposing an old cushion (you could use any cushion/pillow that is too ugly/ ruined to serve its old  purpose)

This can be done 2 ways- 1 way is to simply sew a pillow case type thing with the new fabric that you want to cover your pillow, turn it right side out, stuff the cushion and extra filling in and then press in the open edge (where you pushed in the cushion and filling) and handstitch or top stich that closed.  OR the 2nd way (what I did) was the same as above but you can use any old fabric since that pillow wont be seen and you are still going to cover it with another case, but just sewed my open edge closed without turning edges in and then made a seperate decorative pillow cover..

This isn't really a tutorial because I tried  to write one and it sounded crazy plus its pretty easy to figure out and you'll have to do diferent things depending on what size/ type old cushion you use so I will just tell you what I did...

1. First I found some fabric I had that was already folded over and sewn into a shape like a long pillow case so I stuffed in my cushion to see if it would fit and it fit pretty good except for the four corners. Then I took the cushion out of the pillow case and cut off all the extra strings that were on the cushion for attching to the rocker ( if you arent lucky enough to find some fabric that is already in a pillow case shape that fits your cushion you can quickly measure, cut, and sew a new case either out of pretty fabric which will cover and be your new pillow or out of whatever fabric you have on hand that you will still cover with a cute seperately made case OR you could also use an old regular pillow case you have lying around and just adjust the length/ size to better fit your old cushion)

2. I top stiched around the pillow case fabric just to make it extra secure since the fabric and stitching was a little old and keep all the stuffing in that I was going to add to the 4 corners. 

3.  Next I used 2 handfuls of Poly-fil  to stuff into the two far corners of the pillow case. Be generous with the stuffing. I wanted the corners to really be full so they would always keep their squared shape.

4. Then I put the old glider cushion into the case making sure my two corners staight tightly packed with Poly-fil.

5. Then stuff the final two outter corners with the Poly- fil

6. Next I pinned the open end closed and sewed. It was kind of tricky to sew a perfectly straight line since all the stuffing on the right side had to be pushed out of the way for the fabric to fit under my machine, but since I was still going to put a decorative removable case over this pillow I didn't care. If I did it again I would draw a straight line on the fabric ahead of time to use as a guide when sewing shut.

IF you are going to end here and use the pillow case you made as your final result you will have to fold in the open end and handstich or topstich closed to make it look nice.

This is me trying to push the cushion & stuffing out of the way so I can sew

As you can see I didnt sew a straight line

7. I cut the extra fabric from my pillow case off on the right side and voila! You have a new pillow

I still had a raw edge on the right side, but it didnt matter because this wasn't my "final" project, I made a super cute throw pillow cover using this simple ruffle stripe pillow tutorial from Prudent Baby

The only thing to note about the Prudent baby pillow tutorial is that if you are covering a pillow that is not square (like mine) then in the first step they say for the back pieces "you'll need two pieces the same length by half the width of your pillow plus 2.5inches". BUT if you follow those directions the opening for putting the cover on will go the long way across the back of your pillow like this..

and it is easier for the opening to seperate and the inner pillow will show SO if you are doing rectangular pillows just switch the directions around to say "you'll need two pieces the same WIDTH by half the LENGTH of your pillow plus 2.5inches". Which is what I did with some smaller blue ones I made and the back opening went across the short width way and keeps the pillow enclosed better.

I made two more little pillows in blue to go with the larger maroon one ( I just filled those two with all Poly-fil because I didnt have any small old cushions to stuff with)

I also made the framed "artwork" to go on my aunt's wall above the couch that will have the pillows on it just to tie the colors and the room together. Her last name is DeHart so I did the monogrammed "D" with a little heart.

A tutorial for this fabric artwork will be coming soon