How to make a quilted panel for a cushion.

I have a chair I absolutely love. A leather captain;'s chair is a superb piece of Steampunk furniture. Whilst this creation of brass and oxblood leather may look superb it is not very well padded. I decided that  instead of just buying a cushion I would make a padded, quilted panel to adorn a pillow case to use as a cushion.

I scavenged my pile of remnants for some suitable steampunk fabrics. Check out this blog on tips for how to store fabrics.  A basic quilt can be made with small squares of fabric. I found a red fabric with a beautiful design about twice the size of my intended quilting squares. I decided this would become the central feature of my panel. 

Each square  of fabric would have a seam allowance of about 1cm. The central panel would have to be 1cm smaller on each side than TWO quilting  squares to make allowances for the fact  that it would not loose fabric to a seam allowance half way along it's length (as it was all in one piece)

The easiest way to sew lots of squares together is to sew them into strips and then to sew these strips together.

Right sides together  pin and sew one square to another, and repeat to make a strip of three squares.

Repeat this until you have 4 stripes of fabric. Press the seams open. 

Now line up one end of the strip to the central panel and right sides together sew along the length of the panel. This SHOULD leave one square not sewn to the central panel.

Now place the next strip along the other edge of the central panel, begin by sewing the end to the square of the first strip that is not sewn to the central panel. Now fold out and right sides together sew this strip to the edge of the panel. 

Repeat for the remaining two strips. You should now have a square or diamond of patchwork. This by it'self can look very attractive, but I wanted to add an extra dimension.  To give the panel a padded effect cat out two pieces of fabric the same size as your patchwork and some nice thick wadding. Sandwich the wadding 

between the patchwork and one piece of the fabric WRONG SIDES together. Pin in place and starting from your central piece top stitch where one square of fabric meets another. 

You should now have a beautiful padded panel. to finish the work place the second fabric piece over your quilted project RIGHT sides together and sew along the edges, leaving a gap to let you turn everything right sides out. Slip stitch this gap shut and you now have a stunning padded panel.

By itself this padded patchwork makes a nice decorative cushion, however the next blog will show you how to make a matching cushion cover opr pillow case to stitch it onto.