Wool Stuffing For Cushions

Cushion covers can be stuffed with wool instead of using a ready made cushion pad. I am grateful to Jane from www.woolsack.org who gave me permission to follow her advice.

One fantastic thing about wool stuffing is that usually you can stuff the cushion without a fabric liner. You can stuff cushions of any shape or size but you will have to match the amount of stuffing exactly to each cushion - some heavy cabled cushions need different amounts of stuffing to feel ‘right’ compared to a jumper weight fair isle cushion.

A pure wool cushion meets all flammability criteria without any harsh chemical treatments.

You can also wash the entire cushion if needed, although wool doesn’t need washing as often as other fabrics. Just soak in slightly warm water with either wool wash, washing up liquid or shampoo. The main consideration is to not use an enzyme-based detergent as it can damage the wool fibres. After a few minutes gently squeeze a few times to remove any excess water (do not wring). Then rinse, squeeze again, and place between a couple of towels to remove as much water as possible (kneeling or standing on the towels works a treat).

Finally ‘fluff’ up the cushion a bit and place it somewhere warm to dry, but not directly on a heat source such as a radiator or vent. Drying can take as little as a couple of days if there is a bit of a breeze, or a bit longer in an airing cupboard. Give the cushion a bit of a fluff up once or twice a day while it is drying and then your cushion is as good as new.

Jane posted the following on Ravelry:

"I've personally stuffed many hundreds of cushions with carded wool - made by another mill that donated it for the Woolsack cushions, but probably the same sort of stuff, so I'll share my personal view.

I'd never use any else for stuffing anything now. It performs better than any other synthetic or feather/down filling I've ever come across. A couple of British wool knitting kits for sheep/toys I’ve come across contain carded British wool in the kit for the stuffing.

It can be the waste from carding machines - so as clean and fully scoured as the finished yarn, but now turned into a usable product."

Ella46 also posted on Ravelry:

"I use it to stuff all the cushions I make. It is a natural by-product to making the yarn so very eco friendly and it works well, you can really squash it down and make things very well stuffed. It needs a bit of separating when you work with it but you just do that as you stuff and it comes good."