Sewing, Making Cushions Part 1

Initially we were going to replace the wet moldy foam in vbirth, but we changed our minds the more we slept on the uncomfortable seetes and added a pilot birth above starboard seete.

So we decided to replace all the cushions, in the whole boat!

In the beginning, we outlined the vbirth using paper and bought 3 inch foam, medium density. We worried about the vertical limits with the area, not wanting the bed too high. However, we slept on this 3 inch foam for a bit, and it was not comfy, then it got ruined from spilled kerosene and pee (kids are still peeing bed). Those pieces of foam are trashed.

After more time on the boat, and some remodeling of sette on starboard, I made a paper outline of each area and diagram of how many cushions and approx measurements. As I learned, there are no square measurements on a boat, everything is curved, which makes the perfectionist-uneasy, and me who likes to eyeball stuff-cool.

Using my outlines, I took them to foam place and they cut all the foam pieces, 4 inch med density for vbirth and dining seete, and 4 inch high density for starboard sette - a higher density because it will get more usage. I decided long ago, when making cushions for our old trailer-sailor boat closed cell foam is impractical and expensive, so we purchased open cell foam. The foam was costly, about $500 all together. Fortunately, we had a piece of foam left over from our old boat, which fit nicely in our new pilot birth. Then we decided to go replace trashed foam with 3 separate pieces for vbirth, instead of two long pieces. 

Buying foam is tricky, near our house they sell it in flat pieces, you buy the big piece period. Near the boat they want to cut it for you and keep the scraps, and charge the same price. The scraps are mostly useless to me, so it didn't bother me, but I noticed that foam place glued and sold the scraps - probably in custom cushions. Anyhow, there is one use for scrap foam in our house, to hit other people with it. The kids love to use it to whack each other.

So now we got the foam, I had to figure out the material. This was the most tricky part, besides sewing it. I finally chose vinyl on bottom (after lots of research I purchased on sale - at half price, marine grade vinyl and polyester outdoor material at Joann's fabric), lighter in vbirth and darker in cabin seetes, and a light/dark stripe back cushion for each cabin seetes. I've attached photos of the vbirth, still working on the cabin seetes. Overall, the cost of fabric, thread, fiberfil, and zippers, was about $500.

A piece I did not show, but added was fiberfil. I found at Joann's fabrics the waterproof and mildew resistant stuff, its about 1 inch thick and allows for forgiveness if the cover is a little to big or corners not right.

Sailrite.com has DIY web page that is super helpful, I paid $5 for cushion "how to" and it was worth it!  I also spoke to one of the upholsters at the shop near our house and he was helpful in how to measure and sew up the edges of cushions.              

The last picture is my hearty Pfaff 332 sewing machine. We bought it on Ebay and have been pleased with its performance.  Its an old machine, but it has power my household Singer did not have. It is between a household and industrial machine. I repaired our sails already with this machine, had some patch work and seam repairs, it did great on the tougher thick dacron and thin fragile nylon.