Outdoor Chair Cushions Pt. 2 - Cutting the foam

If you have read "Outdoor Chair Cushions Pt. 1" you know the saga of my table and chairs purchase and that I now have the materials to make 6 outdoor dining chair cushions.  So, my next step is to measure the chairs and make a pattern for the NU-Foam I will be using.

Here is one of the chairs in question.

And here are my measurements.

I'm trying to decide if I can get away with rectangles or if I need to shape the pieces.  So I will make some preliminary pattern pieces first.  I do like that curve on the top though ...

Looking at the preliminary pattern I can see the seat is too narrow in the front and I want to curve the front of the seat pattern.

The back of the seat pattern needs to be curved, too, or it won't fit nicely into the bend of the chair.

Back to my work table to make changes on the pattern.  I will make the back a bit narrower and tape paper on either side of the seat to make it wider and I will round the edges by tracing the shape at the front of the chair.






OK, now I am happy with it.

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This is my giant roll of NU-foam. It needs to come out of the box to breathe. Meaning it's needs a chance to puff up and smooth out after being squished in the box.

I mark it by pinning it with tacks to the foam and drawing around it with a magic marker.

BUT ... NU-Foam is really hard to cut! It is killing my hand.  I read on line and it is recommended to cut through it with scissors in layers.  That's a lot easier.  I tried 3 different pairs of scissors before I found the one that I like the best.  The foam dulls the scissors fairly quickly so I am using scissors that I can sharpen with one of those Fiskar's hand held scissor sharpeners.

I use this all the time!

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Well, I didn't count on the fact that the seat padding would lift up the back padding so it now sticks up too high.

I will trim off 1" of the top of the back padding and change the pattern.  And now I only have to cut 5 more backs and 5 more seats ... I am going to have blisters.

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... On second thought I better make a muslin of the cover before I cut all that foam. I'm just not sure how things are going to work out at the point where the back meets the seat so there is a chance the foam pattern will change again and I really don't want to cut the foam any more times than is necessary!  After all I am making 6.

Oh, and I need to go buy one more yard of NU-Foam.  The box only has 5 yards and each chair is taking one.  Good thing I have another 50% coupon for JoAnn's.

In the next installment of the saga of the seat cushions, I will make the pattern for the fabric cover and make a test version in muslin.