Sewing Project

Sewing Friends:

My son and his wife bought some metal bistro chairs with round seats for their breakfast area in the kitchen.  They wanted some soft reversible chair pads for the hard, cold seats, but couldn’t find anything to match their decor. They didn’t want ties because their two labs, who are still pups, chew everything they see and ties would be too tempting.  However, they wanted a way to secure the pad to the chair and still have it reversible. So they called Mom.

The challenge was to sew four 18″ round, 1 inch thick, reversible chair pads that would stay on the chair without ties and match their decor.  No problem!

I thought I would share the process with you in case you ever get a request like this or want to make chair pads for yourself.

Fabric 

I had some fabric and silk twisted cord left over from sewing my son’s valances and pillows for his family room-kitchen area.  I purchased a solid coordinating fabric for the bottom of the pad and some 1 inch thick foam.  Well, that’s the matching the decor and reversible soft seats taken care of.

Now, how to hold the pads on the chairs.

I thought about hook and loop tape, but decided putting sticky Velcro on my daughter-in-law’s new chairs wasn’t a great idea.  Besides, it wasn’t reversible.  I had some other kooky ideas, but finally settled on elastic.

I decided to use 1/4″ wide black elastic to stitch across the bottom of the chair pad.  This would be slipped under the chair legs and up under the chair seat to keep the pads from falling off the chair.  We will see how that works with the dogs and my grandson.

Steps to Make Kitchen Chair Pads

Measure the diameter of the chair seat.  These were 18″ circles.

Create Your Pattern

Draw and cut a paper pattern out of freezer paper.  I pressed 2 layers of freezer paper, shiny sides together, to make a sturdy pattern.

Lay the pattern on the 1″ foam and draw around it with a marker. Repeat until you have drawn all four pads.

Cut The Foam

I used an old electric knife to cut the pads out of the foam.  Cut inside the marked line.  Make sure everything is smooth around the edges.  Lay the pattern over the foam after you cut it to check that the foam is cut correctly and you don’t have any wierd angles anywhere.

Cut The Fabric

For the fabric, you need to add seam allowances to the pattern.  Since I was planning to sew in the twisted silk cording, I needed to add a 5/8″ seam allowance all around the pattern.  The lip or tape on the cording is 5/8″ wide.  You can add the seam allowance as you cut or make another pattern if you wish so you don’t make a mistake.  I actually added 3/4″ to the outside of my circle to allow a tiny bit of room for the thickness of the foam.

Sew The Cording To The Fabric

Using a zipper foot, sew the silk cording to the right side of the top layer of the chair pad just like you would a pillow.  Read this article. . . 

http://sewingprojecttips.com/2006/12/13/what-is-the-difference-between-piping-and-cording-and-how-do-i-sew-it/

See this article for good sewing tips on how to join the ends of the cording.

http://sewingprojecttips.com/2007/02/04/how-to-sew-ends-of-satin-twisted-cord-trim-on-pillows/

Attach The Elastic

Before you sew the under side of the pad to the top layer, cut a piece of narrow elastic (I used 1/4″ wide black elastic) and lay it across the middle of the top chair pad pinning each end in the seam allowances.  Stitch to secure it in place.

Sew The Under Pad Cover To The Top Pad Cover

Now, place the right sides of the chair pad fabric together and pin to hold in place leaving an opening to insert the foam.  (I left about 5″ open.)  With the top pad up so you can see your previous stitching, sew along the cord with a zipper foot again leaving the 5″ opening.

Turn right side out.

Insert The Foam Pad

Fold the ends of the foam circle in to the center and put it into the fabric cover.  Use your hands to flatten the foam and position it where it needs to be.  Smooth everything out and pin the opening closed. 

Finish The Chair Pad 

Slipstitch the opening closed.

Pretty nifty kitchen chair pads, don’t you think?  Hope they pass the test! 

Matching kitchen chair pads to your decor just kicks it up a notch!  Sew your own.  It’s easy to do.  You will love the coordinated look and you will have the right size and shape.  You can put ties on yours or even put some of that no skid stuff on the bottom if you don’t want to reverse the cushion.  It just makes sense!

Do you have any good kitchen chair pad ideas?  Please share them with us.

To Your Sewing Success,

Marian

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Sewing Projects, Some Other Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.