order of sewing box cushion

Sew the zipper into it's panel. Then sew the all the sides into one loop. Next layer the top panel, the piping/welting and the sides loop right sides together. Ditto the sides loop welting and bottom panel. You might want to stay stitch the corners with a short stitch and clip them first in order to make the corners easier.

Did this for my doggies bed. Which he's recently torn apart.

AK in PA

First determine how long your boxing strip needs to be. This will probably be equal to the distance around the top or bottom *at the stitching line.*

Then determine how long the strips for the zipper need to be -- probably a little more than the length of a side, to wrap around two corners to make it easier to get the pillow form in and out. Buy the zipper first! You may not be able to get the exact length that you planned on.

Subtract the length of the zipper strips from the total length needed: this will tell you how long a strip you need to sew to the zippers to make the boxing strip. Add four seam allowances to let you sew the two strips together.

---------------------- A worked example: Suppose that I am using half-inch seams to assemble a cushion twelve inches square.

(You may want more or less than half an inch, depending on your fabric.)

I cut two thirteen-inch squares for the top and bottom; after taking a half inch off each side, there will be twelve inches left.

There are four twelve-inch sides, so I need a boxing strip that is forty-eight inches around.

I roodle around in my foot locker and find a zipper with a fourteen-inch chain. A trifle tight, but it's the right color. The tapes are sixteen inches long, so I decide that that is the right length for my zipper strips. (I'd allow at least an inch of excess strip at each end of the chain, to keep stuff from piling up together.)

We calculated that the finished boxing strip needs to be forty-eight inches. Sixteen from forty-eight is thirty-two. I add two inches to allow for seams: Thirty-four. If I cut a thirty-four inch strip and lay it end-to-end with a sixteen-inch strip, the total will be fifty inches. But when I sew them together, I lose half an inch off the long strip and half an inch off the zipper strip at each seam: I lose one inch at each end of the zipper strip, that's two inches, and two from fifty is forty-eight.

Mops brow, cuts fabric, sews boxing strip together, pins top or bottom to boxing strip, has a little of one or the other left over -- well, that's just the way fabric is, that's all. So mark the corners and the midpoints of each side on the top and bottom, and make eight equally-spaced marks on the boxing strip, match the marks, and you can sew them together without unintended easing.

Joy Beeson