Sliced pie cushion

This time in the workshop of half baked ideas, came to be a small cushion project that spawned from the annoyance of the actual dollfie dream mini cushions being a bit of unobtanium status .. atleast within reasonable costs...

 

also the fact that for the third time I was stumpted in trying to make the dollfie dream maid set from the book I had bought a few years ago .. partly due to fabric thats totally unsuitable for garment use..

 

So, I thought of making a cushion that looked like a sliced pie of sorts, if that description works in any way... There probably is a more suitable name for it in english, however has a non native speaker such name has eluded me... anyways.

 

for this project, what you need are a few basic design tools...

 

A ruler, a compass, and a angle gauge.

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first figure out how big of a cushion you want, and marking the center of your circle, draw the outer ring.

 

next decide how many sections you want the cushion to be made of, and divide 360 with that number.

I went with 8 section so I ended up with a easy degree of 45

 

Mark out a line through the circle, and then place the angle gauge in the middle spot with it zeroed to the line, make a mark at the angle you came up with, and use the ruler to draw a through line with this point.

 

hoping for a bit of a more plump look, I added some extra roundness at the end of the slice by using a suitable round object to draw the tighter circle from corner to corner of the slice.

 

Now we have the basic pattern for the slices. then we need to think of thickness, to make the outer pieces, and also the stringers that will go inside the cushion for the plump look.

 

the lenght of the stringer is naturally the lenght of the long side of the pizza-slice shaped pieces, and the height is whatever you choose. I went with 4,5cm on the outside, and 3,5 cm on the inside so it would be a little concave to allow for a big button of sorts to go in the middle, without it coming outside of the general lines.

 

Next is making the pattern pieces, and here are the one's I used with a 1cm allowance :

 

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So three basic shapes to be cut out of fabric, the outer side piece could be made from one long piece, but this way it was a bit more easy to sew onto the stringer-piece.

 

I first prototyped a section with just cotton:

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The construction was a bit fiddly, and I didnt take any photo's since I didnt think it'd work too well ..

 

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in any case it all starts with attaching the outer pieces to the upper slices to form top pieces.

 

sewing together two top pieces with a stringer going on the inside edge.

 

adding one bottom slice to either side of the stringer remembering to leave the rough edge on the outside so you can get to it when you close the circle.

 

then continue the circle by adding a top piece, stringer, and bottom piece in order, going in the same direction to keep things a bit more under control.

 

The final attachment is a bit of a pain in the butt to make, but should be possible, by carefully identifying the ends that should end up inside the cushion and carefully see to that you dont end up sewing anything you dont want to into this final seam.

 

after the circle is complete, Invert... or outvert the final product, and add suitable batter from the open center slots to each section, and then close them off however you see fit.

 

and if I could do it, you should be able to have something like this:

 

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The center button here was just two circular pieces sown together with a hole in the other piece, to put the batter in it after it was inverted... or outverted.. or however it works. Its not attached yet, but I planned on sewing a piece of cotton in the center hole, and adding a snap that would attach to the cushion through the center hole to the base.

 

Audrey posing with the result... it could have been a bit thicker when looking at this,

 

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But as always, this was a bit of a punch into the dark ... will have to see if I ever improve upon it...

Final result looks so, so pretty! Clever design idea. I like that it is well suitable to be sat upon, as well as leaned on.

 

I can see why the fabric was NOT suited for garments!!

 

Linda S.

galatia9

its not too bad for a first attempt, but typical constructors criticism makes me think that its hardly pretty.. nice, but not pretty. too rough and tumble looking for that.

 

but as a starting point its at least good. size and shape was roughly eyeballed from that original dollfie pillow, but as I already mentioned id probably make the next one a bit thicker, as at this height it doesn't look comfortable, posing audrey on it wasn't too easy either. From a picture taking stand point it was also a bit frustrating since now I wanted to show the pillow I had to select a combo from my shelf where the pillow actually could be seen from underneath the model.

 

a knee high one would probably make most sense in casual prop use, maybe a bit more diameter so you could get two ladies on it at the same time...

 

but shall see if I get back to this, since at the moment I have my eyes set on investing into some cheat codes for wood/plastic working... also going back to the daytime work...heh

If you keep posting things like this, I might finally get the initiative to stop being lazy and do something. another easy and excellent idea.

its not too bad for a first attempt, but typical constructors criticism makes me think that its hardly pretty.. nice, but not pretty. too rough and tumble looking for that.

Well, then... Audrey looks very pretty on it. I'm sure you see flaws in person that we don't see in the photos.

 

Linda S.

galatia9

WOW. I will have to try to make one of these

If you keep posting things like this, I might finally get the initiative to stop being lazy and do something. another easy and excellent idea.

heh, well there's no danger of that in the near future, that you can rest assured with... at least until the probable Emilia international lottery is dealt with.

 

Well, then... Audrey looks very pretty on it. I'm sure you see flaws in person that we don't see in the photos.

Ah, well Audrey always looks pretty ... thats a default.

 

But like I said, constructors criticism... Its a bad habit of mine, probably rooted with what I do for my daytime job, it always has to be perfect or near, or not really at all.

 

But at least this time I went through the whole thing instead of just giving up which I usually would have done at the first signs of issues, since I identified it as the fabric being mostly at fault, and not me... so progress in that sense.

Minor update to this... A friend of mine decided to redo their living-room and gave me most of the textiles they decided to swap out. including a few pillows.

 

of which so far one was used for materials...

 

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So a possible DIY-kit opportunity where all the stuff is in one place...

Now that I have some sewing under my belt, I might just try one of these. I also liked seeing your photos of the new purple cushion in use.