We like our couch– it’s comfy, it can double as a single bed, and Ryan got a really good deal on it. (We only like to buy something if we get a really good deal on it, because every time we use it, we want to think about how we got a really good deal.)
But at some point the back of the couch had been used as a temporary shelf, and the cushion on the left never recovered:
That was as straight as you could get it to stand up. This bothered me. I started looking at couches on craigslist, but they were all worse. I considered frumpifying the other cushion to match. However, I was able to get most of the frump out of the frumpy cushion by taking the stuffing out and doing some reformational work.
Here’s all the stuffing from the frumpy cushion, shown with the better cushion being used as a stencil to show me how to reshape the stuffing:
I found that most of the stuffing came in loose tufts, but there was also a corner of the cushion that had been stuffed with a big folded-up wad of batting (the stuff that comes in sheets). This was perfect, because it explained why the stuffing wasn’t working cohesively, and it gave me a big piece of batting to hold all the stuffing in the shape I wanted.
See how I wrapped the stuffing with the batting? That’s what allowed me to stitch it all together and keep it in that shape.
Making those stitches was pretty tricky since I didn’t have a long upholstery needle and I needed to get all that stuffing sewn away before Daughter woke up from her nap. So I invented the thimble-needle-cork method:
Basically, since my needle was much shorter than the pile of stuffing, I just used a thimble to stick the needle in from the bottom of the pile while I pressed a wine cork into the top of the pile with the other hand. Using my hand-hand coordination, the needle and the cork would (usually) meet in the middle of the pile of stuffing, the needle would get stuck in the cork, and I could pull the needle the rest of the way through. I only stabbed myself a couple of times.
So in six places on the cushion, I stitched down and then up through the whole pile of stuffing and batting and then tied a knot. I used doubled-up thread for extra strength.
If you don’t have a piece of batting to wrap around your stuffing, I would suggest buying some. This wouldn’t have worked with just stuffing.
After I got done reforming and stitching, I zipped the cover back on and put the cushions back on the couch. Not perfect, but much better! In this picture you can kind of see where the piece of batting ends, but now that the cushion has had a few weeks to settle in, you can’t see that line anymore. And it hasn’t started to slouch yet!
$0 spent, and I no longer feel the need to buy a new couch!