I made several throw
pillows which needed to match on all four sides.
Here's a "fun"
plaid to start with. If plaids aren't difficult enough, this one
is nearly an inch off from being straight from selvage edge to selvage
edge. When I was cutting a long (112") window seat and flipped over the
material to match the other side, it was off over an inch and a half!
The few bucks a framers square will cost you will save you a lot of
grief. I blocked out the two plates on this job and pulled the fabric diagonally
until I got both plates pretty straight front to back then sewed up the
cushion matching the boxing on both sides as usual. This fabric steamed
well to get out any puckers caused by forcing the material to match. Plan
out a job like this before cutting to make sure you have enough
fabric to have the same pattern centered on the plates and that all the
pillows will be the same. I've had plenty of times in the last 25 years
where I've had to get a 6 yard chair out of 5 yards. You don't want to
have to order more fabric because you are a few inches short. Since most
window seat cushions are cut on angles with either the front or back being
wider you can save some fabric by cutting one side (with angles) and flipping
over and cutting the other side right above where the first side was cut
out-pattern permitting, of course.
I made several throw
pillows which needed to match on all four sides.
There's several methods
to match striped boxings and plates. This way is similar to the
way we made the cushion in "SEW
A BOXED AND WELTED CUSHION ". Sew the welt cord to the plate until
you get to the front corner then add the boxing (centered and lined up)
and go around in the usual manner. Flip over and sew the plate with welt
to the boxing on the first side you left open. Here's
a tip when sewing stripes: When you are sitting at your machine
the stripes may appear to line up when they really don't because you are
seeing them from an angle. Try standing up and over the job to be sewn
to initially start the match. Check often to make sure stripes remain straight-tug
a little on either the plate or boxing if necessary.
This was the prefered
method on our long bay window seat. I sewed the welt to the plate then
the plate to the boxing in front. You can line up zipper boxing this way
if you want to also. Try to sew just to the left or right on top of the
previous stitch so you won't have to go around again.
This is an open sided
cane back chair. It was easiest to cut and sew the cushion first then line
up the seat.
Being open on the sides
and back this chair presents the same matching problems as a stripe or
plaid ottoman and takes much more time to recover, of course. We cheated
a bit and handsewed the material below the arms to the deck fabric to match
the already sewn cushion boxing. The zipper boxing needs to be lined up
on this job.
Here was a beautiful,
expensive tapestry that caused us a headache. You see there are three different
sized bouquets. The obvious match was centering the large one but the manufacturer
put four of those across the width of fabric which would make it nearly
impossible to split both sides. Centering would have cost several yards
of additional fabric (and hundreds of dollars) to this sofa job. The best
way turned out be to balance two large designs in each of the two cushions
(it barely came out) Think before you cut! Explain the situation to your
customer.
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