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| One of our shinto stools... |
They're well designed and sturdy, but in essential minimalist Japanese style, they are hard like rock to sit on for any long length of time, despite the "scooped" design of the seat.
I don't mind, since that means that I don't sit for long.
However, this past summer, my mom commented that they could use some cushioning. So when I purchased three fat quarters of my Ode to the Canadian Penny fabric during Spoonflower's 50% off sale in November, it occurred to me that this would be the perfect project for a couple of them.
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| Ode to the Canadian Penny fat quarters... |
Not only that, I would score points with myself by turning it into a recycling project.
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| Chair pads from ages ago... |
I had several of these chair pads that hadn't been used for years taking up space in a closet, so it was a no brainer to harvest their foam innards and repurpose them into shinto stool seat cushions.
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| Foam cut and pieced (hot glued) together... |
The shinto stool seating surface is 11" x 15" while these foam pads are basically 12" squares. I sliced and glued to arrive at an appropriate size. (And since these foam pieces are so thin as to be almost not there, I used two of them for each cushion.)
I also needed a way to ensure that the pads would stay on the stools and not drop to the floor every time someone got up after using them. Since the top of the seat extended three inches beyond its base all the way around, I decided that some tabs and elastic would do the trick to keep the pad in place.
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| Scribbling and planning... |
Straight to my notebook I went, drawing quick diagrams and scribbling down measurements. I drew up a fabric plan and then pulled out some "muslin" fabric (it was actually an old worn out bed sheet) from my closet to make a prototype.
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| A successful prototype... |
Turns out that a fat quarter of Spoonflower's lightweight cotton twill is sufficient material to make one shinto seat cushion. Woo hoo! (I love it when one fat quarter is enough!)
Once dimensions have been determined, the sewing part is a snap. Here I made the eight required tabs in assembly line fashion.
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| Tab construction and turning... |
One end of the tab is left unfinished as it will be encased in the side seams. The raw edge at the other end is folded to the inside; this will be the receptor for the elastic. (I used the muslin version of the cushion to determine the length of elastic required.)
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| Elastic inserted into the folded ends of the tabs and stitched up... |
To add additional cushy-ness, I interfaced the fabric with fusible fleece. Then I quilted the large maple leaf on each side.
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| Quilted surface adds some texture... |
On the muslin prototype, I boxed the corners, but decided to leave the actual ones with the "knife edge" finish.
Here are the finished cushions.
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| These are actually reversible... |
And here are our updated, stylish shinto stools... now padded for softer seating.
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| A successful outcome... |
I'm always happy to come up with a recycling project, especially one that ends up being used on a daily basis.
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| Softer seating for a shinto stool... |
And in case you were wondering, I did keep the original covers from those old chair pads. Who knows, maybe they'll be turned into something useful someday.
The 'reversibility' factor is ingenious!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the generous compliment!
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