You’ve scored a gorgeous wood-framed sofa with a little too much wear on the removable cushions. The watermarks, stains, rips and worn spots are past restoration; the cushions need reupholstering. Remove them from the couch and set them apart as you spruce up the wood and reupholster any padded segments of the frame. Then customize your own seat and back cushions for a perfect balance of firm and fluffy, with a core of down-wrapped foam, neat piping borders, and upholstery zippers that will make you look like a guru.
Unzip removable pillow covers and mark them at each step of the deconstruction so you know which cover belongs to that cushion. Follow this process for an antique hand-crafted sofa as well as a couch with shaped cushions that match the contours of the wood framework. Take each cover off its cushion.
Examine the cushions to ensure the foam core and down and feather filling are salvageable. Replacing one means replacing all to ensure uniform resilience in most of the cushions when you complete the job. If you plan to replace the filling, then measure each bit to find out how much foam you need; use the previous inserts as patterns to your new.
Cut new foam inserts to your seat cushions from 4-inch high-density upholstery foam, about an inch bigger than the old foam all the way round. Cut the loose seat-back cushion inserts from 3-inch foam to get a seat that is deep; 2-inch to get a shallow couch. Wrap the foam tightly in new batting, slip-stitching the batting around the foam.
Sew an envelope of tightly woven ticking material to lie flat on the top or front of each cushion. Cut the fabric 1 1/2 inches bigger around than the biggest side of every cushion — you will need two bits per cushion. Stitch the fabric, right-sides together, with a 1/2-inch hem on all sides, but leaving a 8- to 10-inch opening for stuffing.
Turn the ticking envelope right-side out and stuff it with a mixture of down and feathers — 60 percent down to 40 percent feathers for fluffy but firm cushions. Blind-stitch the open end of the envelope closed and bend the botanical topping to all four corners of its corresponding foam add.
Use the cushion covers since the patterns for muslin covers to contain the foam and feather inserts. Take apart the pillow covers with a seam ripper, maintaining the form and the hem allowances of the original covers. Remove the zippers and piping cord and then place them apart to reuse. Cut muslin to match the upholstery cover bits, seam it on a single and two short sides, and flip it so the seams are on the inside. Fit the feather-topped foam inserts into the muslin covers and slip-stitch the open ends closed.
Cut upholstery fabric utilizing the old fabric as a pattern. For each cover, sew a zigzag edge along the two pieces of fabric where the zipper will go. Set the zipper you saved onto a single border and mark the bottom and top of the zipper opening with dressmaker’s chalk. Pin the fabric right-sides together and stitch the zipper wax, leaving the part between the chalk marks open. Baste the open region of the seam with the widest stitch setting in your own sewing machine.
Press the seam open and then position the zipper set on the incorrect side of the fabric, matching the chalk marks. Pin the zipper, turn the fabric over and then draw a line where you will stitch to catch the zipper tape on either side of the seam. Sew the zipper into the seam, pull out the loose basting stitches, then open the zipper and complete sewing the cover.
Cut fabric on the bias into re-cover the piping cord you removed from the original covers. The fabric should wrap around the cord with 2 inches to spare — you will need the excess fabric to sew the piping into the cover seams. Lay the cord on the incorrect side of the fabric; pin the wrong-sides together and sew the piping cord tightly set up. You will have a wide seam allowance left; do not trim it.
Pin the proper surfaces of the seat cushion cover side and top pieces together, together with the flux tolerance knocks between them, using the previous covers since the guide for piping placement. Sew through all 3 layers, press and trim down the sloping borders. Pin the bottom to the side pieces and stitch together, trimming and pressing the seam edges upward.
Pull the cushions right-side out through the zipper opening. Tack a D-ring tab to the rear of every seat cushion, to correspond to a matching snap on the sofa framework. These can help to hold the seat cushions set up on the couch.
Sew the back cushion covers collectively, with the piping sandwiched between the proper sides of the fabric, as it was for the seat cushions. Trim the seams and then flip the covers right-side out.
Slide — work actually, as they should be cozy — the covers above the foam and feather fillings and arrange the reupholstered cushions on the seat and along the back of the sofa.
