Gardening Knee Pad | Madam Sew

Gardening Knee Pad

Using fabric scrap filling

My mom loves gardening and I made her a knee pad and I'm sharing the tutorial with you!

We have a small city garden, but I don’t do a lot of gardening... I plant something new every year, but I’m also letting nature take over a bit. It is more like a wild, informal garden. I remove some weeds, but not all. So, I’m not on my knees a lot in my garden. At my parents house, there are beautiful flower beds and my mom is constantly rearranging her plants, so for her this little cushion will come in handy.

A kneeling pad protects your knees from the hard work of gardening, and protects your clothes from dirt and grass stains. I added an elastic to the side so you can roll your pad up and secure it, or use the loop to hang it on the wall where your gardening tools are.

And... I didn’t buy anything to make this, not even filling! I decided to use fabric scraps. Do you also find it difficult to throw away fabric scraps? It brings me joy when I can reuse and repurpose items and make beautiful and useful things without spending much money.

For this knee pad I used 2 different fabric types. I chose vinyl for the bottom because it’s easy to wipe clean. For the top of the pad, I used a soft sweater fabric from my stash that matched the flowered vinyl. You can choose whatever fabric you want as long as it is a bit sturdy and easily washable.

For the filling, I dove into my scrap box, gathered the small pieces and the 'ugly' fabrics and cut those into small pieces, maximum size 2 x 2 inch.

Once you know the principle of how to make this knee pad, it's very easy to change the size. The measurements in this tutorial give you a pad of approximately 19 x 8 inch.

You need:
    - 2 pieces of fabric: 22 inch x 9 inch: 1 cotton + 1 vinyl piece
    - 1 piece of wide elastic, 10 inches long
    - a pile of fabric scraps

2 pieces of fabric
fabric scraps

Scrap filling

Fabric scrap filling is not as soft as polyester filling, but it gives your pad a bit of weight – which is perfect for this knee pad. You can also use scraps for other floor pillows or a seat pad for your terrace chair. The smaller your scraps are, the better. To cut scraps quickly into smaller pieces, you can also use a rotary cutter, just like chopping veggies :-)

cut scraps quickly into smaller pieces

The steps

1. Cut 2 fabric pieces, both 22 x 9 inch.

2. Position the elastic strap in a loop in the center of one of the 2 short edges of the vinyl fabric, on the right side, the loop towards the inside. The elastic loop is sandwiched into the fabric with all the raw edges lining up. Secure the elastic on the vinyl fabric with stitching at 1/4 inch.

cut 2 fabrics
loop in the center

3. Sew together 3 edges right sides facing at 1/2 inch seam allowance. Leave 1 long edge open and don't sew all the way up to this edge. Stop/start at 1/2 inch from the open edge. We need to fold in this end in step 9 to create a hem.

 

 

4. Trim the edges a little.

trim the edges

5. Turn the fabric right sides out, push out the 2 corners and iron flat. The elastic is now on the outside.

turn the fabric right side
iron flat

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6. We are going to create tubes/channels for the filling by adding stitch lines every 3 inches. I am using temporary markings as guides for the topstitching. Draw 6 lines with a temporary fabric marker parallel to the short edges of the fabric pieces.

temporary fabric marker

7. Sew on these help lines through the 2 fabric pieces but stop 1/2 inch away from the open edge and don't forget to lock your stitch in place. Trim your excess threads.

8. Add the fabric scrap filling to the channels. Make sure the tubes are filled to the top, but leave room for a 1/4 inch hem.

fabric scrap filling
make sure tubes are filled

9. Now fold in the 2 open edges to create a 1/4 hem. Pin or clip the 2 edges together over the entire length. Keeping this edge closed is so much easier with sewing clips.

pin or clip the 2 edges

10. Topstitch on your folded edges to close the kneed pad and keep the fabric scraps from coming out. Edgestitch at approximately 1/8 inch from the edge. If you want a more invisible seam, you can also close the seam with an invisible hand stitch or a ladder stitch.

topstitch on your folded edges

This is it.

The hardest part is the edgestitch in step 10, keeping everything together and sewing a straight stitch, without the fabric pieces peeking out. My magic wand was a big help

edge stitch
straight stitch

If you have any questions, just send me an email! an@madamsew.com

Happy sewing!!

PDF Download for this tutorial here

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3 comments

What a great idea! I will be making two – one to use outdoors and one for inside when I’m cleaning. Thank you!

Sue M

I love the simplicity of this pattern. Thanks for sharing x

Erika O'Dell

I love the simplicity of this idea. Thanks for sharing x

Erika O'Dell

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