Friday, February 17, 2012

How I Made My Chair Cute- A Tutorial Of Sorts


Ok, I had plenty of people ask about how I made the chair's slipcover.
So here is the main thing you will need.. lots of patience

I totally forgot to get lots of pictures,
probably because I was too busy quietly leaving the room to sit on the couch
with my face buried in the pillows.


 So, here is the story of how I turned this.....

 Into this...

First off, I got the chair from a thrift store.
Then, I went to ikea, and found a king size duvet cover for only 12 bucks.

I was excited, and seriously thought this would be a synch. 

Now, what you do, is take the cushions off, and lay the fabric over the couch, and cut it in fitting pieces.

Here is the ONE picture I have. I know.. I'm terrible!
But, I had one big piece, that was the body of slipcover, then cut smaller pieces for the arms, and sides, basically following the chair's seams.
Now, pin those together, then take the thing off and sew together.

At this point, my chair cover looked like a dust cover from an old haunted house.
I tried to figure out what to do.
I crumpled the whole thing up and left it for about an hour.
Then, found my bravery, and went back.

The whole thing was just drooping over the chair like a big sheet.
So, I started pleating, and making small stitches. The stitches kept coming out,
so I grabbed my fabric glue.
Best decision of the day.
I made pleats to make it all fit together, and glued. I held it for about 1 minute then let go.
The glue held on strong.
I used Fabric Fusion. This stuff is strong, and washable.

So, my chair was finally starting to come together!
The only problem was the bottom part.

My original chair had legs, and I just couldn't figure out how to make it look nice.
The fabric was just hanging there, all jagged and ugly.

So I thought, what do I do to hide messes?
I cover them up.
That's what bed-skirts are for!   (Right?)

So, I made a skirt for the chair!


I bought some velcro tape, and reinforced it with some sewing.
I attached some to the chair, making it tight so the chair fit together even better.
Then I attached the skirt, and it actually looked good!






Now, when I need to wash it, I can take the skirt off, then slip the whole thing off!

I used the left over fabric, with the bulk of the design for the pillow case and cushion case, and some matching fabric for some cute throw pillows.


In retrospect, it was easy enough..
and I'm so sorry there are not many pictures, this might be the most disappointing tutorial ever.

10 comments:

  1. I love this! I have two couches that I would love to cover, but never once thought about using sheets and sewing them. Total spazz here!

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  2. That is the cutest chair ever now!! I love it!

    Julie
    http://julies-thisandthat.blogspot.com/

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  3. This is so neat! You did a great job :) I really need to redo the cover on my $7 chair I got from the thrift store.

    xo Amber P.

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  4. Wow! 1000 times cuter afterwards! Great job!
    xo Heather
    http://ahopelessnotebook.blogspot.com/

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  5. This is such a nice looking project! the colours are great!!
    -Nicole
    Knit, Nicole, Knit!

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  6. this has inspired me to recover my couch... wish me luck. :)

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  7. Nice slip cover.....and I'm from family of slip cover makers and upholsterers. Not that I can do what my other family members can do, but I get by. Your instructions seem pretty clear to me and I'm saving this blog page to my "favs" for later use and to share your address with a few friends. I've used velcro for a few slip cover skirts before too and I hghly recommend it to others.

    Velcro also works very well on bed skirts. Velcro eliminates the need for under the mattress fabric and it stops the bed skirt from slipping. In the past, I've used industrial strength sticky back velcro for the box spring, but now I will try the Fabric Fushion glue on regular velcro instead.

    Professionals usually place the hard ridged side of the velcro apprx 1 inch inside the outter edges on the top of the box springs...on both sides and the bottom of box spring. That way the velcro is hidden from sight when the mattresses are bare. They make the skirt a couple of inches longer to allow for the distance from edge of box spring to TOP of the velcro attached to box spring. Then they sew on the softer felted side of the velcro to the top edge of the bed skirt and try it out on the bed before they hem the skirt. Your Fabric Fushion glue could be used instead of sewing the velcro to the skirt top.

    With velcro, it's so much easier to remove the skirt for cleaning and for putting it back on the bed since you don't have all that fabric to slide in between the mattresses. You now have a nice looking custom made bed skirt that won't slip and is easy to remove. You save 100s of dollars too, believe me, if you can make the skirt design style that you like too. My family makes a few custom bed skirts that cost over $1000. Fabric cost incuded in that price, of course. I hope I explained this well enough. Thanks for the tip on the Fabric Fushion glue.....I'm going to find some of that glue to use for some of my future home decorating projects. My imagination is running at "high speed" now.

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  8. Hi I'm only 11 and you're
    SUCH an inspiration to me.
    Thankyou for the idea :o)

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