I needed a couple of cushions to chuck on my sofa that would tie in the retro theme (here’s the blog post) that I’m working on for the living room and I’d looked everywhere and couldn’t find the kind of thing I had in mind. But luckily enough, I spotted a large square of Dralon fabric at a carboot sale – and it was exactly the right shades of orange and red colours and the striped pattern that I was imagining for the cushions. So I snapped it up for a couple of quid and fortunately the piece of fabric was probably the size of four cushion fronts or two whole cushions.
I already had some old cushions on my sofa that had gone all bobbly on the front, so I unpicked the seams and discarded the fronts, keeping the concealed zip attached to the back panel. I used the back panel as a template to cut a square from the Dralon fabric that was exactly the same size as the back (including the hem). 
I then pinned the two pieces together and used the hem lines where the back had previously been stitched as a guide for stitching the fronts and backs together. I used a zipper foot on the sewing machine to sew the front close to the edge of the zip that was already attached to the back panel. I then neatened the raw edges with a zigzag stitch to prevent fraying and turned the cushion right-side out & gave the fabric a quick press so that it covered the concealed zip. I fluffed up and re-used the cushion pads from the original cushions and the new covers fit perfectly!
And there you have it, two lovely retro cushions using genuinely vintage fabric and for a fraction of the price of new ones and at the same time upcycling my old unwanted bobbly cushions as well!
