Drop Cloth Slip Cover



not my chair



This is what it looked like around my house last weekend, so I decided to tackle a chair that I have had for some time. This chair actually belonged to my grandmother and I have seen many of them over the years and they look quite nice when reupholstered.



this is my chair



I made some inquiry's into the cost of having that done and it would be about 300.00 in labour + fabric. Not really to bad - depending on what fabric you choose, but this chair was still in really good shape and I kinda like the dark green colour although it doesn't fit with my current decor. So inspired by all of the blog posts about using drop cloths to make slipcovers, and buoyed up by the instructions by Miss Mustard Seed, I purchased by drop cloth and began. I got the drop cloth from Home Depot for about 15.00, and following Miss Mustard Seed s directions I washed it with a cup of bleach. I was afraid the fabric would be too stiff and hard to work with, but found the exact opposite was true. Once it was washed a bleached the fabric was soft and wonderful to use.

The first step, was to make the welting for around the arms. I used my rotary cutter to slice of a strip 21/2 inches wide and using a zipper foot, I encased the welting in the fabric. Sorry I thought I had a picture of that. Next I measured the approx width and length of the front of the arm and sewed the finished welting to this strip making a nice curve at the top. Now the arms are finished, I moved on to the seat. For the seat, I cut a big ole hunk of fabric about 4 inches wider and longer than the seat base. I didn't take any pictures of that, but that's really all there is to it.

For the inside front, simply cut a piece the approximate width and length needed - leave lots extra you can trim it later.

Next for the outside back - this is the toughest piece so far so take your time - It took me three tries to get it right before I could cut my backing piece. Drape the fabric all the way around the back starting in the centre. Pin the fabric in place. Here's a trick I learned from my hairdresser - you can't see it very well in the picture, but to hold the fabric in place use two straight pins placed at opposite angles. The fabric will stay wear you want it. I discovered that if I was careful, I could use one piece of fabric around the entire back from the front of one arm to the front of the other arm and if I cut carefully at the front edge of the chair back, I would leave a nice chunk to fold down and form around the inside arm of the chair

Once the back and front were in place simply sewed on the pinned lines - removing the pins as you go of course. Then I sewed the arm front pieces in place. This is wear you want a nice tight fit, but not so tight that you can't get the slip cover on and off. I put it on and took it off after every step to make sure. Next I sewed the seat to the inside back, leaving about 4 inches of fabric to tuck in. The trickest part was sewing the sides to the seat deck. I was pondering this part so much I forgot to take a picture, but basically I pinned until I got it how I liked it and sewed my seam. For extra credit at this point I went over the seams again with my serger to make the cover hold up better in the wash. I finished off by adding a chunk of pre-maid fringe to the bottom. ( I Love Miss Mustard Seeds pleats but I had had enough by this point.)

For the final fitting I used a paint stir stick to push the excess fabric into the crease. You have to do this periodically with slipcovers or they will pull out and start to look like crap.

Here we are, the finished slip cover. I used about half the drop cloth for this  and it took about one afternoon to complete ( about the same time as it took me to write this post) I also made the pillow from a tote bag that I picked up for about $7 dollars last summer. Not a bad investment id say. I am a pretty good sewer, but anyone should be able to do this - just take your time and go slow. I it doesn't work you haven't invested to much or messed up the chair, but if it works - Wow