Welcome to my monthly 'Free Pattern Friday' feature, where I road test a free sewing pattern or tutorial: sometimes a children's one, sometimes an adult's one. I try to publish these posts every first Friday of the month, timed to provide inspiration for those who plan to get their sew on over the weekend. I firmly believe that, if you pick your projects carefully, sewing doesn't have to be a crazy-expensive way to clothe yourself and your family. Thanks to all the amazing pattern designers who have offered up their hard work for us to enjoy for free.
This is a project that I completed a couple of months ago, but I wanted to share it with you now to coincide with #ScrapBustingSeptember, the prompt created by my pal Meg Grandstaff. Meg is encouraging us to get creative and resourceful with our scraps, and all you have to do to take part is work on a project made from, or incorporating fabric or yarn scraps! If you want to hear what Meg achieved and took away from last year's challenge, and what her plans are for this year's, check out my recent conversation with her for my podcast Check Your Thread.
What is particularly awesome about these meditation cushions,is that they provide a purpose for your annoying, unusable fabric scraps. It's a great alternative to chucking them in the bin destined for landfill, or to an uncertain fate in the textiles recycling collection. You'll be amazed by how many you can fit in one of these! You can also chop up textiles such as worn out tea towels or unwearable old clothes. And even if meditation isn't your thing (it recently became mine, but I like to meditate laying down!), these can be used as extra seating for guests or as a kind of foot stall. So massive thanks to The Daily Sew for making this tutorial available for free. Plus, enormous thanks to Check Your Thread Patron Lois for sharing the tutorial with the community.
Pattern type:
This tutorial is for a circular meditation cushion, AKA a zafu. It is comprised of two circles of fabric, and one long strip of fabric that is pleated up and stitched to the edges of the circles. You create an overlap with the ends of the strip to conceal the opening. Technically, you could could stuff your cushion with all manner of materials, however I'm endorsing the use of fabric scraps! You can stitch the opening shut, or make the overlap significant enough that the contents won't come out if left unstitched.
Sizing info:
Apparantly, most zafus are between 6" and 9" tall, however this project is incredibly customisable to your own preferences.
Fabric info:
According to the tutorial: 'This project works best with 59″ (150 cm) wide fabric. However, you can piece together fabric if yours is not that wide. Choose a fabric that is on the heavy side like canvas, duck, denim or upholstery fabric. Many of these come 59″ wide so, bonus.'
I used a remnant of stretch denim that had been in my stash for a while. It had a weird join along the width that made it difficult to find a project for it. I didn't have quite enough to cut the circles and strip in full pieces, so I had to make a join along the centre of the circles. If you don't have a remnant of fabric that runs across from selvedge to selvedge, you could easily piece together fabrics for that also. Lois actually makes her strips longer than the tutorial suggests by piecing them, so they don't need to be stitched closed. This means she can give them to non-sewing friends and family to stuff with their own textile waste.
Findings:
This was SUCH a fun project! Yes, I probably could have figured out how to do something similar to this on my own, but it can be so nice and relaxing to simply follow along with some else's instructions. There's also a video version on YouTube if that's your preferred method of info transmission!
The cushion could house a surprising amount of scraps and cut up textiles. I have a feeling it might 'settle' and become a bit loose, so I gave instructions to the recipient of the cushion to carefully cut open the opening and stuff with old socks if that happens...
Would I make this again?
Absolutely! Patron Lois has been whipping heaps of these up to give out to friends and family to help them deal with their textile waste, and I might start doing the same some day.
