DIY Cushion Cover from a Blanket

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

My family is SO hard on our stuff. We are the illustrated definition of not deserving nice things, because at any given time we are either muddy, actively painting, hosting five foster kittens from the local animal shelter, hosting thirteen teenagers from our Girl Scout troop, or just, you know, not paying attention to what we're doing. I'm the one who put a scorch mark in our (to be fair, at least 40-year-old) carpet by... well, I carried a pot of freshly popped popcorn directly from the stovetop and put it on the floor. Apparently that's very different from carrying a pan of piping hot Pizza Rolls directly from the oven and putting it on the floor. Who knew? 

So you might notice that here on CAGW I post a lot of tutorials for washable covers for furniture. I've got couch covers, chair covers, tablecloths and cozies of all kinds to attempt to save my stuff from the negligence of me and everyone around me. 

And the latest on the list? Cushion covers for my benches! It's easy to see why the hallway bench needs a cushion cover, because that's where everybody takes off their muddy boots and clay-covered sneakers and grimy yard Crocs. 

No matter what cushion you've got that needs a washable, reusable cover, I'm not going to judge you. Instead, I'm going to show you how to make that cover from any handy blanket that you've got in your stash. 

 Here's what you'll need!

• old blanket, quilt, bedspread, or similar piece of fabric. These thicker fabrics mimic upholstery weight fabric, so do a similar job holding up under wear and keeping spills from soaking through to the cushion below. They also tend to most often mimic the look of upholstery weight fabric, although there is no shame in covering a cushion in a vintage novelty He-Man bedspread, either! I had to work hard to convince myself to use this wool blanket that I thrifted (for $2.50!!!!!!!) instead of a vintage Sesame Street bed cover, and the only reason I decided against the Sesame Street cover is that the wool blanket is sturdier.
• patternmaking and cutting and sewing supplies. You'll need large-format paper to draw the cushion cover pattern, and all the usual suspects for measuring, cutting, and sewing.
• elastic. 
• bias tape (optional). With this wool blanket, I don't need it, but fabric that's prone to raveling will require it.

Step 1: Make a cushion cover pattern and use it to cut your fabric.

To make your cushion cover pattern, measure your cushion's length, width, and height. 

 To the length and width measurement, add .5", depending on the thickness of your fabric. My wool blanket is moderately thick, but if I was using one of those vintage 1980s bedspreads with lots of batting, I'd probably add more like 1". 

 Add a flap to each side of the cover pattern. Each flap should be the height of the cushion plus .5". 

 Lay out the pattern on your fabric and cut it out.

  

Step 2: Sew the cushion cover and add elastic.

With right sides together, sew the adjacent short sides of each of the flaps to each other, using a .25" seam allowance. Finger press the seams open. 

Measure approximately 6" of elastic for each corner of the cushion cover. Mark the center of each piece of elastic, then pin the center to the corner seam. 

Set your sewing machine to its widest zigzag and longest stitch length. Stretch the elastic, then zigzag it to the raw edge of the cushion cover, keeping it centered on the corner seam. This is exactly the way that you sew a fitted sheet! 

 Repeat for each corner of the cushion cover.

  

Step 3 (optional): Add bias tape.

If the raw edges of the cushion cover will tend to fray, encase them in double-fold bias tape. 

I like to have a spare of these types of home items, and to save space and time, I like to go ahead and put the spare on, as well. So although you can't see it (mwa-ha-ha!), underneath this wool blanket cushion cover is a second cushion cover, this time sewn from an unfinished vintage quilt top. It's a lot cuter but a lot less sturdy, which is why it's only the backup cover. 

However, whenever I'm emergency cleaning the house for imminent company, that nicer cover hiding underneath the plain, serviceable cover makes it super easy to whip off the plain cover, toss it in the dirty laundry, and have a cuter cover ready for company. It gets to show off for just as long as it takes to wash my workhorse cushion cover, then that cover goes back on top. So if you ever come visit me and you find yourself sitting on top of a sweet vintage quilt-covered bench cushion while you take off your filthy barn boots, then you know that you're VERY special!

P.S. Want to know more about my adventures in life, and my looming mid-life crisis? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Breaking News: Our House is a Disaster

OMG you guys, I have been so discombobulated for this entire year so far!

Right at the beginning of the year, it was finally our turn with the construction crew Matt had first contacted back in... oh, March 2020 or so. Turns out that EVERYONE felt like a global pandemic was a great time to get those nagging home renovation issues taken care of! 

We desperately needed to have our main shower retiled, and it turned out when they finally demolished the shower that we ALSO desperately needed to have several joists, several walls, and the floor in three different rooms replaced because that shower had also apparently been leaking into our subfloor for years.

Here's what your house will look like if your shower's been leaking for eight years!

The joists look like they've been through a fire, and they were about as structurally stable.

The head guy, showing me those joists rotted through with mold, said, "I'm surprised you're not constantly sick!"

Fun fact: I AM kind of constantly sick? Although lately my nagging cough has been a LOT better, ahem...

So now we get to have not only a new shower, but also a new closet floor, new bathroom floor, new family room floor, and new drywall in all those rooms, too. And if we're going to have new drywall, we might as well paint. And if we're painting and getting new flooring... well, we HAVE been wanting a new giant couch for several years now.

It's definitely a yay, because we've been living with the previous homeowner's 1980's-era tile, carpet, vinyl laminate, and dingy white wall paint since we moved in. And that couch used to live in a dorm lounge. So, you know, it's always fun to upgrade to stuff that's more one's taste, I guess.

Except if you know me, then you know that's not actually fun for me. The presence of the construction crew, the mess, the need to pick out and purchase new stuff, the drop cloths and stacks of tiles and non-functioning amenities are really getting to me, and I fervently look forward to one day being once again in my own put-together home without strangers.

Currently, the family room floor is done, with solid bamboo installed on top of our gross old vinyl:

Yes, that's Syd mopping the walls, because a clean room with new flooring made us suddenly notice that there are cobwebs all over the tops of our walls. Does everyone periodically mop their walls, and this is yet another piece of home training that passed me by?

And for some reason I noticed just last night that the workers who installed the floor also nailed our front door shut? You can actually see the board in that above photo! I need to add this to my list of random crap to ask them about.

Also, the bamboo floor is no longer nearly that clean. I don't know if it's always going to show dirt like crazy, or if it's just because I've got construction workers tromping through all day every day, or if it only feels like it shows dirt like crazy because the one good thing about the gross old vinyl floor is that it NEVER showed dirt so maybe I'm just used to being filthy.

These are the two walls we're going to repaint:

Syd suggested burgundy, and I was all, "Yeah, that sounds cool," because I don't know or care about wall color and just didn't want to have to make a decision myself, but Matt does NOT think burgundy is a good idea and so has promised me that he'll take some photos of the room and Photoshop wall colors onto it so we can see what looks good.

It probably won't be burgundy...

Here's the shower tile coming together:

Thank gawd for Matt, who is interested and detail-oriented and design-savvy so all I had to do was follow him around Menard's and be bored while he picked out beautiful tile for us.

Our tile guy, whom I call Tyler in my head and I'm going to be SO embarrassed when I inevitably call him Tyler to his face one day since that's not his name, leaves his empty Skoal cans lying around his work area:

I stole one the other day, intending to clean it and make a cute craft out of it, but when I opened it the lingering--not even lingering. Overpowering? Noxious? Amber waves?--of Wintergreen Skoal fumes about knocked me on my butt. Seriously, just remembering the smell makes me feel like gagging. I held my breath while submerging the empty can halves in bleach water and then left them there for a day, but I swore I could still smell it when I rinsed them off, and anyway, the can is just plastic, not metal like I'd first thought, so I dumped it.

Tyler is, nevertheless, my favorite construction guy, because unlike the other guys, who are gregarious and pleasant and make small talk, Tyler just minds his business, coming and going without fanfare. I unlock the door for him when I get up in the morning, and he lets himself in without a word when he arrives, then leaves without a word eight or so hours later. I have even almost forgiven him for this:

That photo is Tyler, having left for the day without a word, locking me out of the bathroom. Which would be fine, even though I really miss that toilet and sink when they're gone, except that my clothes closet and my homeschool closet are both on the other side of the bathroom. The kids were able to bravely soldier on without the homeschool supplies I wanted for them, ahem, but I needed my CLOTHES! My socks! My underwear! My best hoodie! My comfiest jammy pants! All locked away without warning, along with my heartburn medicine and hair ties and tampons!

And Tyler has done that TWICE so far.

It's for a good cause, though, because check out what he installed underneath our tile:

It's gonna be one of them fancy underfloor radiant heating things so my precious toesies don't get cold without that 1980s bathroom carpet underfoot!

And here's Matt floor-is-lava-ing something I absolutely HAD to have from the homeschool closet:

You guys, I don't even KNOW the timeline for when this crew is going to be finished, and even then Matt and I have to paint and I'm trying to talk him into calling an electrician to put more outlets into the family room because I read an online article that scared the snot out of me on the subject of power strips and extension cords, and the other day I caught him showing the contractor the kids' bathroom and planning for Tyler to retile it, too, and how many rotten joists do you think there are under THAT floor, and if they're retiling it we might as well replace the sink and the toilet and WHEN WILL THIS END?!?!?!?

Just... send soothing thoughts my way, and ocean sounds mixtapes, and frozen pizzas, and links to flexible shared workplaces.

Homeschool STEAM: Whole-Body Pendulum Painting in an Aerial Hammock

Why, no, I DIDN'T write lesson plans for this week--hooray for me! The kids will still have Math Mammoth, a page of cursive, a Book of the Day, their Memory Work, and a hands-on project of my choosing each day--more crystal-growing, perhaps, or more chemical reactions, or maybe some craft projects that I've had in the back of my mind for a while--but we have so many BIG things going on this week that it just didn't make sense to block out half of each day in advance.

Our homeschool group's STEM Fair is tonight. I anticipate that the kids will spend fully half a day on finishing their prep and refining their presentations for this.

Their grandparents arrive for a visit tomorrow night. I'm sure they'll want to do things with them other than watch them color in maps and make salt dough models of the spleen or whatever all week. Not to mention that we should probably tidy the house at least a little before they get here.

Oh, and the Trashion/Refashion Show is this weekend! Not only do we have to practice and figure out runway shoes and hair/makeup, but, um... yeah, I also still need to sew the belt and the petticoat that Syd wants for her garment. Oh, and hem the skirt. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to get super productive!

But that's for later, as soon as I get off my butt and outta this chair. For now, I want to tell you about the STEAM project that I did with the kids a few weeks ago, on account of it was so awesome!

You know that we have an at-home, DIY aerial silks rig, right? Several months ago, the kids asked if I would re-rig it into an aerial hammock. I did, and we all love it. I'm about to rig it back because Syd has been wanting to do some actual aerial silks on it, not just lounge around in it and read all comfy (silly girl!), so before I did, and concurrent with Will's Math Mammoth unit on geometry, I set up a whole-body pendulum painting activity on the aerial hammock.

You, yourself, don't have to have an aerial silks rig to do this, of course. You can do it from a tire swing. You can do it with your feet from a playground swing. You can take your regular hammock, double it, and hang both ends from one hook in your ceiling beam or from one carabiner latched onto a rescue rig and looped around a strong tree branch. Hell, you could do it from an actual hammock if you didn't care about having a full 360-degree range of motion. As long as your kid can comfortably reach the ground with a paintbrush while lying in the rig that you've set up, you're good.

Along with the rig, you'll also need this stuff:

• large-format paper. Giant sheets of newsprint work well (we have this exact thing), but you could also use actual sheets of newspaper. This project is about the process more than the product, so who cares that there are already words on it? An alternative to large-format paper could be a drop cloth, tarp, or huge canvas or curtain, etc.
• paint. Use something cheap, with a good flow. We used Biocolors for this particular project, but I can also recommend tempera. I put the paints into separate pots, each with its own brush.
• giant paintbrushes.
• duct tape.

1. Duct tape the large-format paper under and around the rig. You don't want the kid to feel like she has to reign herself in so as not to paint on the floor, so really cover the area.

2. Settle the kid in and make sure that she gets herself comfortable with facing down in the hammock, extending an arm. This is a pretty heavy core exercise for some kids, and they structure it for themselves in different ways. Will chose to lie prone in the hammock, while Syd chose to crouch and lean--both ways exercised their muscles in ways they weren't used to.

Since we were using our aerials silks for this, and aerial silks are quite expensive, I also emphasized at this time that no matter what, they were not to touch the silks with their paintbrushes. I'm sure I'll wash them before I re-rig them, but I just do NOT want to deal with paint stains. Fortunately, the kids both know already to be careful to not soil the silks--no shoes on the rig, no food, no filthy hands--so this wasn't hard for them to remember.

3. And off she goes! You've got to play facilitator for this entire project, as the kid can't swing herself, nor can she reach the different paint pots without you. The kids took turns in the hammock (Syd nearly beside herself in anticipation for her turn), and I sat right next to each when it was her turn, pushing her and handing her the paint colors that she requested. 

Both kids had SO much fun with this! It was interesting to see what a different approach each had to the activity, as well. Will was completely abstract from beginning to end, enthusiastic about simply swinging and letting the paintbrush move with her:

Syd, however, had a goal from the start. First, she tried to paint a face while swinging, and even managed to do so, but even when she moved on from that to painting in the abstract, she wasn't content just to swing, but really wanted to cover all of the paper, not missing any corners:

Regardless of the differing intents, and my emphasis on process over product, both kids' paintings turned out absolutely gorgeous, and they're both hanging in the kitchen right now, where they'll stay until I get around to buying the giant piece of sheet metal that I want to make the giant magnetic display board that I want to live in that giant space.

So... geometry, art, body awareness, muscle strengthening, maybe a little engineering, some of that spinning that's so good for the inner ear. Not a bad way to spend an hour on a Saturday afternoon!

We played with pendulums some during Will's History of Video Games unit study a few years ago, so if you're interested in exploring more with pendulums, have I got some great resources for you!

• Pendulums are fun for knocking things over! Build up a collection of cardboard boxes and toilet paper tubes, and your kids will probably never want you to put this set-up away again.
• Giant pendulums paint on the driveway! If you happen to have a portable coat rack, this would be a fun way to explore pendulums outside. 
• Pendulums are fun for painting! There are several different depictions of pendulum painting online, all with mostly the same basic set-up. I like the PVC pipe rig the best, though. A kid isn't going to knock it over the way that she will a lashed-together bamboo tripod, and yet PVC pipe is nearly as light to transport and just as easy to disassemble. Here's how to build the rig, although I'd put a hook or a carabiner at the end of the string, not a cup. Don't you want to attach a whole bunch of different kinds of pendulums, not just one?
• Here's how Foucault's pendulum works. I know that you've always wanted to know!

Disney Day #3: Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom was originally on my itinerary as a park to possibly skip--I'd heard that it was the smallest, and had the shortest hours, and so my thinking was that if we didn't get to everything that we wanted to see in Hollywood Studios or EPCOT, we could always return to one of those for a second day and simply omit Animal Kingdom.

I'm glad that I didn't omit Animal Kingdom, because this turned out to be Willow's favorite park!

For my part, I don't know how I could ever have contemplated skipping a park that has a Dino Land:

We rode Dinosaur four times--

--the kids rode Primeval Whirl and Triceratops spin a couple of times, and Willow decided that the Boneyard playground was basically the best playground that she's ever been to. It has dino bones!

I really liked the fact that the queues for the major rides were actually walks through themed museums, with fascinating artifacts to stop our racing through miles of empty queue to look at:

All the rides, the safari and the train trip and Kali River Rapids and Expedition Everest (which Sydney managed to ride THREE times, once with the family, once with just me, and once with just Matt)--

--were so fabulous and lots of fun, but Animal Kingdom also had what turned out to be my favorite show, The Festival of the Lion King. 

Why was it my favorite show, you may ask? Well, it has great costumes, with the dancers dressed like animals--

This monkey dancer pissed Sydney off by stopping to pick bugs out of her hair and eat them.

 --and it was truly engaging--

--AND we got our day's short rain shower while we were inside, so that we missed it almost entirely, but my real  reason for having this particular show as my favorite is that my kids? Were all OVER it!

The show was pretty full, but not overcrowded, and as soon as the doors to the auditorium were closed a CM walked over to us and asked if we'd like to sit in the Reserved seating, on a bench right in front on the stage floor. Um...yeah! Then, when our emcees and main characters came out and introduced themselves, one of them came over and asked the girls if they'd like to help her. Um...yeah!

They got pulled out again to help in the finale:

How cool is that?!?

Matt and Willow never had a hard day at Disney. Syd had her hard day at EPCOT the day before. This day, though, was my hard day. I often don't sleep well, and I was up for hours the night before (I finished up Dearly Devoted Dexter, and got well into The Water Wars); I was exhausted, and I had a headache. I really liked the shows because they were air-conditioned and I could sit on a nice bench and watch them--

--and I really liked the rides because they were also cooling (sometimes that cooling was from big splashes of water!) and again, I could sit down.

The walking around and sight-seeing, however--

--was really more of a trudge on my part, and although the rest of the family was quite happy to hang out in rain gear and eat their lunches and wait for the afternoon parade that was a little delayed by the sprinkle--

Do you recognize our rain gear from Niagara?

--I really just had my game face on and that was about it. I have, therefore, never appreciated strangers like these engaging Disney CMs more. One particularly fabulous CM, who, as she was clearing the parade path must have heard me tell the girls three times to stop splashing water on my jeans (puddles, ya know), each time with a little more edge to my voice, came up to them just as they were about to splash me for the fourth, sanity-breaking, time, and said, "My lovely little ladies! That filthy water is not for stomping in and splashing your beautiful mother!" Do YOUR kids obey strangers much more readily than they obey you? Mine do!

Another CM, walking the parade route as well, stopped to entertain the girls by asking them what their favorite animal was. Upon hearing their answer (T-Rex, of course!), she did a T-Rex dance for them!

I, personally, was quite impressed by her short arms and two-fingered hands.

Of course the parade was WELL worth the wait:

Willow bought some great toys for herself in this park, a remote-controlled time machine and an absolutely huge carnotaur, both from the Dinosaur ride gift shop. I did NOT purchase this warm Wookie hat:

Nevertheless, the 5:00 closing time was just what I needed. We headed back to the condo, Matt took the girls swimming while the chicken strips and French fries baked, we all ate a nice dinner together, got the kids ready for bed early, then let them watch a movie on the DVD player in their room while Matt and I went swimming, all by ourselves.

By the time we set our alarm even earlier for our next day at Magic Kingdom--and our homeschool class!--I was feeling MUCH better.

And I slept great, hallelujah.

At the Wonderlab

For Christmas, my Matt gave me a certificate for six months of once-a-month housecleaning. You ought to know by now that my house is really messy--I tidy maybe one room a day, although it's certainly untidy again by evening, and perhaps I'll do some dishes or laundry, but mostly I play Quirkle with the girls, and make Barbie clothes with them, and cook them play dough, and read to them, and build them books out of their artwork, and go to the park and the library and the YMCA and the other park and maybe still another park with them, etc. Seriously, I barely even cook dinner anymore--I feed the girls leftovers of whatever concoction they've asked to make with me during the day (The latest? Mashed potatoes and freshly juiced orange juice), and then later that night Matt gets out the George Foreman and grills us veggie/non veggie burgers.

Matt's scheduled us a housecleaning before on a couple of special occasions, and it's always been this totally retro awesome experience--The whole house! Clean at once! And it smells of pine! And the floors are mopped! And the dishwasher is running! And all the junk is picked up off the floor! And the toilet is SO clean! And I didn't have to do it!--that I have been deeply looking forward to my once-a-month deep cleaning treat, and yet somehow, it's just not working out this year.

The first little company that Matt called just never answered their phone, and never called him back. The next little company scheduled a cleaning and then cancelled because it was snowing, and then re-scheduled, and then cancelled because one of the cleaners woke up with the flu, and then rescheduled. Each time the girls and I are required to evacuate the house, which can be a little annoying depending on our mood for the day, but hey! The whole house is gonna be clean at once!

In our latest evacuation in hopes that the housecleaners actually come and clean our house this time, the girlies and I hit up our regular hang-out spot, the Wonderlab:

Playing with a Parachute

Grapevine Climber

Rocks to Covet in the Gift Shop

Interactive Artwork in the Garden

Shoots!

Kinetic Ball Machine

Wind Tunnels

We had a marvelous time, as usual, and then came home, eagerly anticipating the glory of a clean house. And yet, when I opened the door--Alas! The house is just as filthy as before! The housecleaners did not come! Again they did not come!

Apparently it's a great time to be a housecleaner, with so much business to pick from that you don't even have to show up to a place if you don't want to. And, desperate and all, we've come up with a Plan B that's frankly vastly better than this Plan A, anyhow:

This Sunday, and one Sunday a month thereafter, I will leave the house all by myself. I will leave at my leisure. I will visit establishments of peace and pleasure, such as coffee shops and book stores. While I am gone, Matt and the children will deep-clean the house without me. They will not be paid.

Money-saving AND accomplishes the same goal! And Plan B gets me a soymilk latte, too!

I am sold.

For This, Let Us be Truly Thankful

For the first time in our entire family's existence, we are:

1. Celebrating Thanksgiving.
2. Celebrating together, just us four.
3. Eating at home.

And thus Thanksgiving this year, like everything else in our lives of late, was a true adventure.

It wasn't as elaborate or as long-term as I'd originally planned, in light of our impromptu cross-country road trip, but the girls and I did make the much-desired thankful tree:

 A much-desired and enthusiastically-produced thankful tree, I should say:

Those no-spill paint cups that the girls are using? I've wanted them since the girls were born, I bought them while we were away on our trip, I LOVE them, and I'm going to tell you about them tomorrow.

Some years we eat Thanksgiving dinner with family, some years we go out to eat, one year we ate one of those Stouffer's family-sized lasagnas and then went to a sci-fi convention, but this year we cooked our own Thanksgiving feast. The menu consisted of:

Made-from-Scratch Yeast Rolls

 Honey Butter

Matt's Amazing Entire Turkey

 Including One Turkey Leg for Each Child

 Miso-Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Potatoes

 And, of Course, Two Kinds of Pie

Pie #1, obviously, was pumpkin, baked with my own fresh pumpkin puree. Pie #2 was, briefly, a pumpkin-brownie pie, until Matt opened the refrigerator door with too much emphasis and Pie #2 took a suicidal nose-dive onto the filthy kitchen floor. The little sous chefs and I were very sad, until Matt surprised us with a very non-traditional pumpkin-chocolate pie combination that was so insanely delicious that I'm going to ask him to make it again for me tomorrow so that we can write down the recipe and eat pumpkin-chocolate pie FOREVER!

I Did Mention the Entire Turkey, Yes?

Matt made the entire turkey, since I do not cook meat. I am dang grateful, however, that Matty and the kids have several weeks' worth of lunch meat in the freezer, and I do believe that tomorrow my suggestion that the carcass (ugh!) be boiled into turkey stock will be followed up upon by those who are willing to perform such kitchenly duties.

It was a happy, happy day. Some memories, such as the translation of Willow's thanksgiving leaf (which reads, by the way, "I am thankful that Gracie is purrsy"--ah, invented spelling!), may eventually fade--

-

--but other memories, happily, will be written into Life's Little Recipe Book to keep forever:

 So it's turkey carcass and pumpkin-chocolate pie tomorrow, but tonight, I think we may order pizza.