Geobloke
Posting Guru
My MSS cubby has done exceptionally well, 15 years or so worth of hard life and after that amount use the armrest cushion was beginning to look and be utterly useless 
So, I searched for a replacement cushion and couldn't find anything that would suit as a replacement. I even contacted an upholstery company of two and both said this was too small a job to bother with. Fair enough. Plan B....
Do It Yourself lad...
Off to my local haberdashery (yes I got some odd looks from the shop staff and usual customers) and 20 minutes later I came away with a metre squared of black faux leather material, foam and some strong black thread. Price was £11.50.
I realise this is not the usual hammering and grease gun sort of post, but I like to give things a go and learn a bit along the way...
The first step was to remove the cushion pad from the cubby box lid, 4 screws and to remove the foam and material from the wooden base (glue and staples) and then to carefully pick the old cushion apart to use the panels as templates for the new material.
The foam was cut to size (long sharp knife works the best for this) and glued (using vehicle trim contact glue) on to the base board.
Now for the time consuming part. I chose a slightly thicker piece of foam as I am a tall bloke, so drawing out the net of panels included additional depth. The best way to do this is turn the fabric over and using a soft pencil draw out the panels, cut lines and sewing lines.
Now for the fiddly part, the sewing... First job is to tack together the piping (white nylon strands and thin long strips), then tack that to the main armrest panel to hold it in place. You could use pins if you want to here. I started with a single running stitch and after a while realised that it was not going to be robust enough, nor tidy enough. So un-picked it all and started again with a running back stitch. Single running stitch on the right and running back stitch on the left:
For those who don't know what that is you create a looping stitch that goes forward 1 stitch then loops backwards through the previous stitch (1/2 the distance away), then forward one stitch, backwards half and stitch, etc etc... This way you get a double line of stitches that are strong and any stress on the material is spread across multiple stitches. I learnt something with this. Super stitch for this sort of work.
Thirty minutes later and another learning curve (pun intended...) I have sewn one half of this armrest pad and done my first corner. Quite chuffed with this:
Obviously there is some way to go yet, but do not fear I will post up when the sewing is done and the armrest is back in Miffy
So, I searched for a replacement cushion and couldn't find anything that would suit as a replacement. I even contacted an upholstery company of two and both said this was too small a job to bother with. Fair enough. Plan B....
Do It Yourself lad...
Off to my local haberdashery (yes I got some odd looks from the shop staff and usual customers) and 20 minutes later I came away with a metre squared of black faux leather material, foam and some strong black thread. Price was £11.50.
I realise this is not the usual hammering and grease gun sort of post, but I like to give things a go and learn a bit along the way...
The first step was to remove the cushion pad from the cubby box lid, 4 screws and to remove the foam and material from the wooden base (glue and staples) and then to carefully pick the old cushion apart to use the panels as templates for the new material.
The foam was cut to size (long sharp knife works the best for this) and glued (using vehicle trim contact glue) on to the base board.
Now for the time consuming part. I chose a slightly thicker piece of foam as I am a tall bloke, so drawing out the net of panels included additional depth. The best way to do this is turn the fabric over and using a soft pencil draw out the panels, cut lines and sewing lines.
Now for the fiddly part, the sewing... First job is to tack together the piping (white nylon strands and thin long strips), then tack that to the main armrest panel to hold it in place. You could use pins if you want to here. I started with a single running stitch and after a while realised that it was not going to be robust enough, nor tidy enough. So un-picked it all and started again with a running back stitch. Single running stitch on the right and running back stitch on the left:
For those who don't know what that is you create a looping stitch that goes forward 1 stitch then loops backwards through the previous stitch (1/2 the distance away), then forward one stitch, backwards half and stitch, etc etc... This way you get a double line of stitches that are strong and any stress on the material is spread across multiple stitches. I learnt something with this. Super stitch for this sort of work.
Thirty minutes later and another learning curve (pun intended...) I have sewn one half of this armrest pad and done my first corner. Quite chuffed with this:
Obviously there is some way to go yet, but do not fear I will post up when the sewing is done and the armrest is back in Miffy
