Rocking Chair Cushions

I thought I would share one of my recent craft projects.  Before anyone asks no, we are not expecting but I am having fun building a nursery for the future piece by piece.  Hubby and I have been attending some auctions and yard sales just looking for cool stuff at great prices and after one of the auctions I got the idea in my head that we needed a rocking chair for my imaginary nursery. lol.  After checking craigslist for weeks for a chair that looked nice and yet didn't need much work, I found one that I thought was really cute.  It has little yellow ducks on the back which is totally nursery-esk and not very adult but hey we will have a baby eventually.  I also liked the fact that the ducks are very gender-neutral.

After buying the chair I decided to attempt to make my own cushions for it.  Who knew that rocking chair cushions can cost hundreds of dollars?!  I knew I could make some for cheaper than the retail prices but I wasn't entirely confident on how sophisticated the result would look.  I spent hours researching do-it-yourself tutorials on chair cushions and looking at examples for sale to get ideas on what I wanted mine to look like.  I decided to keep things simple but even so there were a few challenges that I didn't expect.

The first challenge that I encountered with this project was choosing the fabric.  I wanted to pick something gender neutral since I have no idea what gender future baby X will be and I had a feeling I wasn't going to want to repeat this process anytime soon unless I had to.  In order to attempt to include Hubby in my "project"  I asked him to help me to choose a fabric.  I explained to him that I wanted to choose something simple (so that it would not take away from the hand painted ducks) and that I wanted something gender neutral.  Once at the store (and I dragged the poor man to two different stores) Hubby kept suggesting bright busy patterns.  The fabrics were nice but I was worried that they would take the eye away from the ducks.  I struggled to find something that fit the idea that I had in my head.  At first I gravitated towards black or cream based fabrics with subtle patterns but Hubby complained that they were "boring."  He likes color and sometimes gets frustrated with my gravitation towards the basics.  After striking out badly at the first store I went home and did some research on the computer.  The trip to the second store went better.  I still wanted something with a subtle pattern but this time I went for the "nursery fabrics" which had pastel colored patterns.  I found a few that I thought would work and I let Hubby help me pick.  We settled on a fabric with a  green zig-zag pattern.

Challenge two struck when I attempted to cut the fabric.  Silly me assumed that the lines would be printed straight on the fabric and that I could use them as a cutting guide to get my cuts straight... HAHAHA The fabric gods decided to laugh at me.  The lines in the middle of the fabric were straight but as they progressed up and down the fabric they became skewed.  Not only did this pose a challenge to cutting but I didn't want them to look obviously skewed on the final product of my cushions. Call it an obsession with straight lines stemming back to my childhood. (I can still hear my mother lecturing me about how to make the bed so that the stripes in the sheet made straight lines!)

The third challenge was cutting my foam for the back cushion to compliment the curve of the chair back so that they ducks wouldn't be covered up.

Overall, I think my efforts paid off and they cushions came out pretty well.  They may not be perfect but hey I find that even store bought stuff isn't even perfect these days.  Here's my final result!

Front View

Back View

Close Up of Ducks and Fabric Pattern