Floor Cushion

After I hurt my back, I had to change my chair with a more ergonomic one, i had to change my sitting habits and I found myself in need of a floor cushion, to rest my feet on.

It was pure serendipity, that just recently, in Knitted Bliss's blog, I came upon a floor cushion pattern and photo tutorial, posted by Bernina.

Of course, their cushion is quite sophisticated, quilted and very colorful, I needed a practical and sturdy one, to be placed on the floor under my desk. So, I chose to make mine out of old jeans. I have a sack of these, that I have been collecting over the years - long ago, when the children were still small, I decided not to throw away, donate or otherwise dispose of old jeans, but to collect them and harvest the denim textile for various projects.

So, first I cut 16 wedges out of various old jeans and connected them to make the upper and bottom part of the cushion.

Then I cut a 10 cm wide side panel and connected the top and bottom pieces to the side panel, leaving an opening for the filling. However, when I filled the cushion, I found, that it was too big for my liking and I was kind of disheartened. I pushed the project aside and slept on it. In the morning, I decided to get rid of the side panel and make the cushion, using only the top and the bottom parts.

The disassembly was actually quite a slog, as first I had to remove all of the filling, then to rip the seams and on top of it - I had overlocked the seams between the side panel and the flower pieces together and all of that had to be ripped as well :(. When the last overlocking thread was finally removed, I overlocked individually the top and bottom pieces, sewed them together and filled in the cushion. My filling consists entirely from fabric cuttings from all the dozens of sewing projects I've completed lately. Such a filling is definitely much denser and heavier than the special cushion fillings which are store sold, but it works fine in my case, as the cushion I need has to be sturdy and heavy and stay in place.

I'm still thinking about how to approach the problem with cleaning of the cushion. If this floor cushion proves to be really just the thing I need, I might consider installing a long zipper and make the inside filling removable.