I haven’t done any crafting this week, as we’ve been on vacation.

Before we left, Dave asked me to make him a detachable cushion for the observing chair he’s made to use with his telescope. Previously, he had stretched black vinyl over the foam padding and tacked it to the base of the seat, but it looked a bit messy and stopped the seat from folding away properly.

I reused the old foam, and we had still some black vinyl after making the previous cushion, so the project didn’t cost anything. I found online instructions for how to make a box cushion and used them (modified as I didn’t need a zip) to figure out the size of fabric pieces I would need to cut. That was the hardest part – after the cutting, it took about 10 minutes to run the whole thing up on the sewing machine. I didn’t even pin the pieces – the vinyl surface is a sort of mock-leather look, so it wasn’t slippery. I just held the 2 pieces right-sides together and fed them through the sewing machine to make each seam.

I left one seam open to turn the cushion right-side out and insert the foam, then I hand-stitched the final seam. I bought a curved upholstery needle for the task, but the holes it left in the fabric were too large and I didn’t want the cushion to lose its water-resistance, so I used a regular needle and had to push it through the vinyl with a thimble, which was hard work! There’s probably a better way to do it, but this worked fine as a one-off.

Finally, we attached self-adhesive velcro to the seat of the chair and the underside of the cushion, so the cushion will stay in place when in use, but is easily removed so the chair can be folded away.

I’m pleased with how it turned out, especially as it was so quick to make. It’s already been field-tested (literally – in a field!) and rained on while we were on vacation, and Dave seems happy too. I think I need to find more ‘quick’ projects like this. I like the instant gratification.