Part 9 - Sewing the piping to your cushion cover

Part 9- Sewing the piping to your cushion cover

Now it's time to attach the piping to both the top and bottom of your cushion cover.

1. First of all, decide where you want the join of the piping to be as it will be a little bulky – it usually makes sense to have this at the back of the cushion where it's the least visible.

1. Take the first of your seat pieces and place face up.

1. Starting a few centimetres in from one of the back corners, line up the cut edges of your piping and your cushion fabric, giving yourself a bit of excess piping to play around with later – at least 2 or 3 in. You may find it helpful to pin the edges in place.

1. Using the piping foot on your sewing machine, run a straight stitch to attach the two together.

1. To manipulate the piping around corners, make a few cuts into the raw edge of your piping – this will help it to bend more easily.

1. Sew right up to the corner, ensure your needle is down, lift up the piping foot, pivot your fabric 90 degrees, pull your piping under the piping foot and release the piping foot when you're happy with the position. Continue sewing a straight stitch down the new side.

1. Continue this process until the piping is secured to each side of your cushion fabric.

1. Once you've gone all the way around and sewn the final corner, stop a few centimetres short of your starting point.

1. Remove the fabric from your sewing machine.

1. Trim your piping, leaving enough excess to overlap your starting point – the next step is to join the two ends of piping together.

1. Use your seam unpicker to unpick the sewn line down each end of your excess piping to open it up and reveal the raw piping cord, taking care not to rip the piping fabric.

1. Bring both strands of your newly revealed piping cord side by side and cut them so they're able to meet perfectly.

1. Remove any loose strands of thread from the piping fabric and cut the bottom piece of piping fabric to be in line with the piping cord.

1. Fold the edge of the top piece of piping fabric under (a few millimetres) and then tuck your bottom piece of piping into the centrefold of the top piece of piping fabric.

1. Run a straight stitch to secure, going with the direction of your top piece of piping fabric so the foot of your sewing machine doesn't catch the fabric.

1. Use this process for both the top and bottom piece of your cushion.