Creating the Paper Pattern

A. Making Pattern for Top and Bottom of Cushion

It would have been nice if the little flower pot still came with the chair. Then I could just put it upside-down on a piece of paper and trace it. Instead, I had to put a piece of tracing paper on the chair and carefully trace the circle of the frame. This would be the top and bottom of the cushion. (Imagine the top and bottom of a circle birthday cake.) Then, add your seam allowance around the entire circle. In my case, I used 0.5 cm.

B. Making Pattern for the Side of Cushion

Then, I measured the depth that I wanted the chair cushion to have. (Imagine the sides of that circle birthday cake.) For this chair, I wanted the final seat cushion to sit one cm above the frame. The frame was already one cm high. My seam allowance is 0.5 cm. There are two seam allowances...one to sew the top to the side and one to sew the bottom to the side.

So, my calculation for the side piece pattern HEIGHT is:

1cm+1cm+0.5cm+0.5cm= 3 cm

I guess at this point, if I wanted to be extra-nerdy about it, I could have done some kind of math calculation to figure out the circumference of the cushion. Instead, I just roughly wrapped a piece of fabric around the chair (didn't even measure it). Just make sure that the ends overlap so you have enough for seam allowances. That would be the LENGTH of the side piece pattern.

I won't go into the detailed sewing of these pieces together....basically, you are sewing three different pieces together to form a "birthday cake":

1) Right sides together, sew top circle and the long thin rectangle together.

2) Right sides together, sew bottom circle and other side of long thin rectangle together.

3) Clip curves, turn inside out and stuff. Hand sew opening.

I made a test cushion first to see if the pattern I made was accurate. The finished cushion:

(left: pattern of cushion top and bottom, right: finished prototype cushion.)

Next: Testing the fit.