Cushion Fabric

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yachtorion

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Hello all... I'm planning to recover the cushions on my Horizon as the 80s covers look and feel their age.

Looking at Hawkehouse I can either have leatherette... which might be a bit sticky... or Microcare - which is very expensive.

eBay has various other fabrics at different prices but short of getting a set of samples it's hard to know what is any good.

Does anyone have any favourite suppliers / fabrics please?
 
We got our boat seating material from "I want fabrics" in Salford, they also have an e bay shop called Quicksell Store. We got some lovely red leatherete type vinyl material for about £6/running metre of about 55" wide. They have an enormous stock of furnishing materials and upholstering fabrics at their warehous in Salford. I think they are more of a trade place but they were happy to deal with us at the warehouse and good to deal with, apart from the terrific price. This has now done its first season with a few months intensive use (and with 2 dogs on it at times) with no signs of bagging or seating or puncturing.
 
As you are in Yorkshire try Firths furnishings Heckmonwike (sp) they used to have an overproduction/rejects dept.
 
You can use any upholstery fabric.
Unless your boat is very dry, you might want to stick to synthetics.
We bought some fabric from a local warehouse type of place, it probably would not have worn well enough for a boat in charter service, but it looked fine after 5 years of us sailing the boat.
We just did the navigator's seat in vinyl. of some sort, so there was somewhere a wet person could sit down.
 
We risked an Ebay purchase ... 27m of oatmeal chenille for about £140 (enough to make a few mistakes + some left over)
We also bought proper waterproof marine material for the underside at about £100
We piped the saloon cushions using the same material for a premium look
Fixed with Velcro (not zips) because you can adjust the tension + doesn't get stuck or break

Very pleased with the outcome
 
IIRC my fabric came from Toomer and Hayter. They seem very up-market sort of people at the boat shows but they also supplied budget price fabric. Also bought the zipper by the metre from them ... oh yes and the thread. Dont forget the thread!

Fabric warehouses sell lots of curtain fabric but I've not seen very much in the way of upholstery fabric. We did order some from a local curtain fabric shop for a couple of antique dining chairs though.

If you use anything patterned be sure to make the pattern match up on adjacent cushions. Mine are double sided so can be flipped over and used either side up or on opposite sides of the boat. However its done the pattern will still match throughout the boat.

Good chance if the boat is 30 years old the foam filling is in need of replacing too......... thats expensive!
 
Toomer and Hayter are running their stocks down, I understand they are heading towards selling up and retiring. They no longer manufacture upholstery but some of their staff have set up as independent upholsterers and they refer the business on. They did a lovely job on Rebel Runner's wheelhouse seat in vinyl (sourced from Acorn)
 
salar said:
Toomer and Hayter are running their stocks down, I understand they are heading towards selling up and retiring. They no longer manufacture upholstery but some of their staff have set up as independent upholsterers and they refer the business on. They did a lovely job on Rebel Runner's wheelhouse seat in vinyl (sourced from Acorn)
Click to expand...

I cannot remember why I bought from T&H. I could equally have bought from Hawke House but I think at the time T&H was a name I recognised but knew nothing about HH.

A few years later I bought all my heading stuff from HH
 
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