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Howdy! I am so excited that Brenna is letting me share this DIY post on Life After Laundry today. The Marine Corpse moves my family and I around so often that I am constantly changing the decor in our current living situation to reflect our style. This time it happens to be a three story beach house on the Coast of North Carolina. Yep, a half a mile away from the Atlantic ocean, we are lucky ducks.
Our living room is full of sunlight and light colors but we have black leather club chair that does not fit in. I finally took out my sewing machine and a $20 drop cloth (I had a couple on hand ;)) and decided to tackle a slip cover. Outside of sewing curtains and pillow covers, I don’t have a lot of experience. So here is The Cheaters Way to Making a Slipcover. To make this project easy, I didn’t use cording or zippers.
Meet the chair…
Basic sewing tips:
Lay your fabric wrong side facing out.
Make your cuts at least a couple of inches larger for seam allowance.
Go slow and keep your seam ripper handy. 😉
Cheaters tip:
Use the “already-hemmed” edges of your drop cloth for the bottom edges of your slip cover.
Following the chair seams that already exist, lay the drop cloth across the back of the furniture and make your first cut. If your chair is wider at the top, create two overlapping flaps in the back (you can add ties to them if you like) for easy removal and fitting.
Start pinning arm sections, following the chair’s existing hems.
Jump on your sewing machine and sew this section and check the fit (make adjustments, if needed) before moving on.
Drape fabric on sides of chairs, cut to fit, and keep pinning! I sewed the front “skirt” on last and left the seat open because I have a removable cushion.
Sew your cushion cover. I cheated here again by using the seam that ran down the middle of the drop-cloth for the front top hem. (So it’s perfectly straight.)
You could easily add velcro to the open back for an easy closure.
Here is how it turned out!
You can see the existing hems look great.
One more pic! It is by no means perfect but it fits a heck of lot better than a store bought one would and I love the chair much more in this space now.
Thanks so much for having me!
About Kathy: Kathy is the editor of Up to Date Interiors and when is not blogging, spends most of her time being a mom and Marine Corps wife, teaching piano lessons, or delving deep into DIY projects and interior decorating. You can follow her on Facebook , Twitter and Pinterest.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Kathy! I have to admit slipcovers have always intimidated me, but I definitely feel like it’s doable after this wonderful explanation.
Crystal @ Sew Creative
This is fabulous! I need to give some of my furniture a makeover too. Thank you so much for sharing. Visiting from Triberr. 🙂
Best Wishes,
Crystal
Catherine
Thank you so much! I hope to cover a piece of furniture soon, your instructions are helpful. I like the way your chair turned out.