Airstream Cushion Covers

When my friend Ali, owner of the amazing Idol Airstream Salon, asked me to sew cushion covers for her salon, that (like the name suggests) resides in an Airstream trailer in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle, I said hell yeah! I have long had an affinity for Airstreams and thought at one point that I would someday own one myself. I simply adore Ali and she has been my hairdresser for years. Ali has great taste to boot, so once she showed me the fabric she had picked out, I knew this would be a fun project.

After making my Meringue skirt with piping, and three dog beds for Wyatt, I felt up to making cushion covers. Ali and I agreed that we wanted the cushion covers to be removable, and while I had installed a zipper for Wyatt’s dog bed, I wanted these to be constructed a little differently. I realized that for a cushion cover to be easily removed, the zipper shouldn’t just be on one side, but should wrap around the sides a little bit. I remembered seeing a cushion cover pattern in Sew & Stow that did exactly that, so I decided to use that pattern.

The pattern had mathematic formulas for modifying the pattern to fit any cushion dimensions and it was pretty straight forward. For most of the pieces, I just measured the dimensions of the pieces of foam, Ali provided, and added a half inch seam allowance to all the sides. The side with the zipper, and the two long sides, were a bit more complex as they had to be longer, so that the zipper would wrap around both sides (of one short side) and so that the long sides would fold over the zipper ends to form pockets (to hide the zipper ends).

I basted the piping on the right side of the top and bottom peices, like I have been doing for the dog beds, then used that basted stitch as a guide for sewing the sides to the top and bottom pieces. I feel like I am becoming a pro at piping now!

I sewed the rest of it together a little differently than the pattern instructed though. It was kind of a combo of what the pattern said to do and the way I had been sewing the dog beds. I sewed all the side pieces together like the book said, but then instead of sewing the top piece to the side pieces, by sewing halfway around one side and then going around the other way, I sewed the short sides on first and then did the long sides. That made more sense to me and seemed to work just fine.

It was way easier and made a nicer seam when I sewed from the short zipper side down over the pocket, formed by the long side that wraps over the zipper, than vice versa, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that on both sides without ending up trying to move a bunch of fabric through the sewing machine the wrong way. The fabric would not have hung to the left of the machine as I sewed and I would have had to bunch it through to the right of the needle and there was too much fabric for that. Or I would have had to flip the fabric over but then I wouldn’t have been able to see my basting stitch as a guide, so I couldn’t figure out a better way to do it. When all was said and done, it looked fine when I turned it right side out, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. I do love how the zipper pockets at the sides turned out and it’s a great, clean way to hide the zipper ends.

And here they are installed in Ali’s trailer:

I love how they look with the wood paneling and her cool artwork! If you are looking for a hairdresser in the Seattle area, go see Ali or Jackie at Idol Airstream. Not only are they fabulous at what they do, but you get to have your hair done in an Airstream trailer for pete’s sake AND since it is located in the courtyard of the Blu Grouse, you can get a cocktail from the bar while you get your cut and/or color! This just took going to the salon to a whole ‘nother level. I am glad I could contribute (in my small way by doing a little sewing) to this amazing place!