Choosing cushion fabric: seven families compared for real homes

The window-seat question, answered plainly

The most durable cushion fabric is rarely the one people fall in love with first. One of the questions we hear most is some version of which fabric will last on my window seat?

The honest answer surprises people. The workshop's velvet, its linen-look weave and its linen are all upholstery fabric for cushions that live hard lives, and in daily use they wear about equally, so you may choose on color and texture. The nuance still matters: for the heaviest use the linen-look performance weave wins, velvet is the tougher of the two when set against linen, and the 100% cotton stripes are the least hard-wearing of the indoor families.

If you came looking for the best fabric for bench cushions, or simply want your custom cushion fabric options in one place, start with the table below. It sets the seven cushion fabric types against the things that decide a good year: feel, daylight, washing, wear, pets and sun. The bench cushions and living room cushions collections show them at work.

Linen, linen-look, linen blend: read the fiber line

Here is where buyers get hurt, my friends, so I will be plain. A chart called linen is usually not 100% linen. The workshop's linen-look codes are polyester, its natural linen chart is described as half linen and half polyester, and another range is 50% cotton and 50% linen. These blends are chosen because they wear well and clean easily, and they are the best sellers.

If you want pure fiber, ask for the separate 100% linen chart or the 100% cotton fabrics, and get the composition in writing. A buyer in the US once asked for real linen or a natural linen-cotton blend for a floor cushion. It arrived well made and on time, in a synthetic blend. The workshop apologized and remade it in a natural light-blue fabric. A swatch would have told the truth first.

See the linen-look fabrics and linen and cotton-linen pages in the Swatch Library, and the longer real linen vs linen-look Pattern.

How each family holds the light

Look at the photograph at the top: a fuchsia velvet pad with a black welt on a walnut bench, a charcoal rug below. The pink glows where the pile turns toward the window and deepens to raspberry where it turns away. That shade would be impossible in corduroy, whose palette stops short of fuchsia, black, maroon, lilac and lavender. Velvet and the linen-look weave carry the wider ranges.

Each family bends light its own way. Velvet has direction, so an off-white can read beige or darker from one side of the room. Corduroy ribs catch raking afternoon sun. Bouclé and teddy scatter it into soft shadow. The linen-look weave stays flat and even, the easiest to match to a paint chip, while real linen reads a little chalky and alive with slubs.

Daylight never lies; your screen sometimes does. Order swatches, hold them where the cushion will live, and look in the morning and again at dusk. The swatch method and screen versus daylight Patterns walk you through it.

Pets, children and the sunny window

What will your cushion live with: a dog, a toddler, an afternoon sun? No fabric is claw-proof, and I won't pretend otherwise. What helps is a tight, smooth weave in a mid-tone, with covers that zip off and wash at 86°F (30°C). For a home with a small dog and a toddler, the workshop steers people to the linen-look weave or velvet and away from the cotton stripes, which stain more easily. Velvet's short cut pile gives claws few loops to catch; bouclé's loops give them plenty. A pet-friendly chart exists too, described under performance and pet-friendly fabrics and in the pet-friendly fabric Pattern.

A window seat has its own weather. Sun reaches the cushion through the glass every day, so turn it now and then, and choose the same fabric on both faces so it can be flipped. Anything rain can reach, and any screened porch that breathes pollen, dust and humidity, belongs in outdoor fabric. More in window seat fading and the window seat cushions collection.