Update Patio Furniture Cushions with Fabric from Sailrite

I recently had the privilege of helping a friend update patio furniture with fabric from Sailrite. This was a long overdue project that my friend had asked me to do last year, but there just wasn’t enough hours in the day. Fast forward to early spring this year and she asks me again if I’d be willing to recover her patio furniture cushions.

I love sewing. But, my time is limited. Between working full-time, all the family responsibilities involved with having seven growing children, renovating our house and sharing ideas here on The Birch Cottage blog, that just doesn’t leave much time for taking on other projects. It’s just a couple of cushions after all!

So, I sent my friend to Sailrite’s website to select her outdoor fabric. Sailrite has a large selection, great customer service and tons of instructional videos. You should know, I was not asked to promote Sailrite. I was not compensated in any way by or on behalf of Sailrite. I truly loved the experiences I’ve had with them and wanted to share this great company with you. The information and opinions in this blog post are 100% my own.

Plus, if you’re thinking about recovering your patio cushions or updating patio furniture for a friend, you will know about a great resource that maybe you hadn’t known about before. Read on for more on my experience with Sailrite.

Sailrite Video Tutorials

One of the things I love about Sailrite is their great video tutorials. They make every project seem simple, doable and easy. Be sure to visit and subscribe to their YouTube channel here.

In fact, they have video tutorials for projects like How to Join Patterned Fabric to How to Make Bias Piping to How to Sew a Bimini Top for a Pontoon Boat. If it has anything to do with fabric and home furnishings or outdoor furnishings, Sailrite probably has a video tutorial on the subject. Want to recover a recliner. Check! Want to make fabric covered baffled wall for your entertainment room? Check! Want to make window treatments? Triple Check!

Tips to Update Patio Furniture Cushions

Although I didn’t take pictures or even video this project as I worked on it, I thought it still worth mentioning to you the steps I took to recover the outdoor patio cushions and show you the video I used as a guide. There are a few things or tips you should know before starting on a project like this:

Order extra fabric. You never know when you may cut a wrong piece or simply miscalculate.
Use a fabric calculator to determine the amount of fabric you will need for your project. Sailrite even offers a fabric calculator. You’ll find it here.
Take into consideration the fabric repeat pattern. The repeat pattern is the distance or measurement of the horizontal and vertical repeat of the pattern on the fabric. So, if it’s important to you that the pattern lines up or a particular design is in the middle of every cushion, etc., you’ll want to account for this and order additional fabric. Here’s a chart that helps you determine how much extra fabric to order based on your fabric’s repeat pattern.
Terminology. Furniture pieces have specific names, such as plate and boxing. The top and bottom of a cushion are referred to as the “plate”. While the sides of the cushion are referred to as the “boxing.”
Basting tape is your friend. I had never used basting tape for sewing in zippers before and this made the task so much easier. However, it did make my needle very sticky and I simply changed to a new needle before proceeding with the rest of my sewing.
Continuous zipper is amazing! I have never ever used continuous zippers before this update patio furniture project. It’s revolutionary. Seriously. Next time I have the opportunity to work with continuous zippers instead of the traditional zipper, I’m definitely choosing continuous zippers. They make zipper installation absolutely a breeze.
Make a pattern by ripping apart your old cushion cover. Just grab a seam ripper and your scissors to take apart the old cushion cover and use it as a pattern to cut out your new cushion cover.
Mark the back of your old cushion cover when you take it apart. Likewise, mark the back of your new cushion cover when you cut it out. This will help you to line up your pieces correctly.
Cut all pieces at the same time. If you are recovering four seat cushions and they are all the same size, you only need to tear apart one seat cushion, use it as a pattern and then cut out all eight seat cushion plates (the top and bottom pieces of the seat cushions).

Update Patio Furniture Cushions Video Tutorial

Like I said, I didn’t create a video tutorial on how to update patio furniture cushions. If I ever take on such a project again, I’ll be sure to take lots of photos and maybe even create my own video. In the meantime, I thought I’d share this video from Sailrite. Although this video is entitled “How to Recover a Cushion on a Recliner“, the steps and techniques used are the exact steps I used to recover all eight of my friend’s patio cushions.

Thanks, Sailrite, for putting together such a helpful video tutorial!

I should have taken some before pictures of these cushions. They were dark, faded and well loved. They were dark. Did I say that already? Especially when you compare the old fabric to the new fabric, they were really dark. Drab comes to mind. The new fabric just says “summertime”, don’t you think?

I love the way the cushions turned out and my friend is pretty happy about them as well. In fact, you should see her patio now! She has a bright blue umbrella and a gorgeous beige rug that’s just full of texture. It’s quite the outdoor space and I’m just thrilled that I had a role in updating her outdoor space. Now she just needs to add some terra cotta pot luminaries to her patio and the space will be just perfect!

By the way, if you have questions about this project or Sailrite, feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to answer your questions.

Til next time…