Friday, December 7, 2012

You have to taco it!!!

This is the last time I am doing this...

My favorite feature in the nursery is the built in that Wood made with the window seat.  I have always envisioned a little one curled up underneath blankets surrounded by pillows and books.

I was very excited when I found the perfect fabric for the nursery window seat.  I actually found this fabric back before we knew that she was a she!  I loved the plaid (as I have stated before I really like simple patterns) and the fact that the colors were not super pastel but a bit darker, more tinted.  (FYI...I found the fabric at JoAnn's in the home decor section.) 



It had been a couple of years since I did the original window seat cover that was used when the room was a craft room.  I had forgotten the horror.

I had forgotten what a pain it was to work with such large pieces of fabric and foam. 

I am not a fan of working with large pieces of fabric as I always find it a bit difficult to get things cut correctly.  Also it is hard to find a large enough spot to do the cutting...especially one that doesn't include pugs. 
(Yes those are Halloween decorations...I cut the fabric a long time ago!)

Thankfully having the plaid pattern made it a bit easier as I was able to cut along the natural lines in the fabric.

I followed an amazing tutorial by Sew, Mama Sew! that can be found here. This is a very nicely put together tutorial that I follow exactly only omitting the handle part as this is not a portable cushion.  Also the piping and continuous bias portion of the tutorial is one of my favorites.  I use that technique to make all of my piping for pillows etc.  You should definitely check it out!

One tip from me to you is to check out foam from Home Depot.  Seriously Home Depot.  Foam as I have stated before is like gold and costs about as much if you get it from the fabric store (even with 50% off deals).  The husband's Aunt put us onto the Home Depot foam which is slightly less dense than the high density stuff at JoAnn's but not by much.  Home Depot carries foam pads for camping.  I am not sure if they carry them year round but it is worth checking out.  We got a 3 1/2 inch thick pad for about half of the cost of going to the fabric store.

The longer I worked on this project the more certain I became of this fact...this will be the last window seat cushion I do for this room.  Either baby girl will live with this cushion fabric until she turns 18 and moves out or she will go without a window cushion.

The husband and I spent some of the most frustrating and funny 40 minutes of our lives trying to stuff the foam padding into the cushion.  Let me set the scene...

Our window set measures 7 feet long.  The longest zipper I could find at the fabric store was 2 feet long.  While I suspect I could order something longer online I didn't. So can you picture the issue?  We have to manhandle the huge piece of foam into the tiny zipper opening.  What resulted was both Wood and Cloth breaking a sweat while trying to twist the foam into submission.

At one point about 30 minutes in the husband let loose with the comment..."you have to taco it more, taco it more"  at which point the wife started laughing uncontrollably losing her kung-fu death grip on the foam resulting in a major setback in the stuffing operation.

Finally, after recovering our composure, we were able to somehow wrangle it into the cover.  The only way that foam is coming out of that cover is by scissors or the jaws of life.

For all of the grunting and groaning, twisting and turning...I love it.  The fabric is exactly what I wanted for the room.  What a perfect place for baby girl to read her stories. 
(I'm not quite ready to show the entire built in, still a bunch of work to do so this is just a teaser...)

I have a couple of pillows made but still need a few more.  So many projects so little crafting time!

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