Making a Settee Cover, Part 3

At the end of Part 2, the “back piece” was realigned with the “front piece” at the upper back of the settee, centers of both pieces together.  The pins were in-place along the lower back of the settee marking the height of the “seat-deck” around the sofa.  These will be used to transfer to the lower part of the “back piece” later on. 

• Pin the “back piece” across the top of the sofa’s back, attaching it to the “front piece” all the way across out to the arms and to the back edges of the sofa.  Match up the seam lines, if you have drawn those on your pieces.  Draw your cutting line in and readjust your lines as necessary as you pin this piece to the sides of the sofa.  

• Tip:  I like to pin my pieces directly to the whatever piece of furniture I am working on! It makes it easier to align the pieces. Make sure there is enough fabric beyond the sides of the sofa which will be sewn to the sofa’s “side pieces.” Check the “floor-to-pins”-measurement against the bottom of the “back piece” and mark these on the back piece. (We will recheck and make final marks once the cover is all sewn together, just before attaching the skirt.)

• Look at the remaining yardage checking where the weft (the sideways “give” ) is again.  Measure the “side part” of your sofa/settee.  Mine was 8-1/2″ by 30-1/2″ so I cut my pieces out 1″ larger for the seam allowance. (displayed in this photo) 

• Now drape the remaining yardage over one of the sofa’s arms (Drape and cut out one sofa arm at a time.), keeping the weft going across the arm.  Think of the unstretchable part, the warp, as the part going from the front of your sofa to towards its back along the sofa’s arm.  The stretch will go from inside the sofa’s arm towards the outside and over the arm ending at the “under-arm seam.” (see photo above)

• Tuck in your yardage but pull it taught along the sofa’s arm-top.  There will be some folds created that will be gathered into the seam as it is sewn later-on.  Draw in your seam-line.  I did this by pulling-up the part that was tucked-in and creating a curved line along the inside area of the fabric perpendicular to the “seat deck.”  Leave several inches of fabric extra in the lower third to half of this “arm-piece” to tuck-in later into that inside seam.  This extra fabric will be the looseness needed to pull the completed settee cover over your piece of furniture without making it too tight.  I like my furniture covers pretty tight, but you may want yours to have a looser fit. 🙂

• Pin together the “arm-piece” to the “front-piece” creating tucks to take up the extra fabric. Drape, mark and cut-out the other “arm-piece,” drawing lines and creating tucks as needed. Put the tucks in roughly the same place as on the opposite arm.

• Pin together the “arm-pieces” to the “seat-deck” beginning from the back of the seat coming forward.  This will ensure that there is enough fabric where it needs to be tucked later.  Clip the seam allowance as needed to get the pieces to marry-up.  Cut a 1/2″ or 5/8″ seam allowance away from your drawn line.  In this next photograph, you can see how I left extra fabric for that inside “arm-piece” and that I drew in all of my lines.    Draw-in and cut-out the part along the back of the sofa where the “back-piece” will join to this “arm-piece.”  

Now, take off what you have pinned together and sew these seams.  I plan on sewing my arm and seat seams first then I’ll re-fit those pieces to the sofa and then pin the “back-piece” and the “side-pieces” on, sewing them next.   🙂 If you plan on using welting on any of these seams, now is the time to make it before you sew your seams.  I plan on putting welting along the “upper back seam”, but not on the “inner seam” here.  Also, I will be put welting around the “skirt,” along the “side-seam” and around the “front-arm pieces,” which have not been made yet.

Time to make Welting! 🙂 

Okay, “welting” is made by cutting out fabric on the bias, or across the diagonal.  What you will do is put your “cording” in-between lengths of your remaining fabric.  Figure out how much fabric you will need to make your welting. My cording is 1/4″ wide, so I will cut mine at 2-1/2″ wide which will leave enough fabric, once folded and sewn, to have for a seam allowance.  Cut out lengths of this over and over, then stitch these lengths all-together.  You’ll need enough welting to stitch into every seam in which you plan on having welting, so add up all of your seams’ measurements to get a rough estimate.  More can be created later-on if you start running out. 😉  

Sew the cording inside the fabric right next to the cording.  Use your zipper foot.  FYI:  Welting is cut on the bias so that it can stretch in two directions making it conform to whatever shape needed. Sew the cording into each seam in-between the pieces of fabric remembering to face the welting towards the right side of your pieces.  You can always attach it to one piece, then sew the opposing piece on next instead of trying to sew all three together at once.    

Cut out the “front-arm pieces” and stitch on welting.  Sew these into the sofa cover.

Making the skirt — take your “floor-to-seat-deck” measurement for the height, and measure around the sofa’s total widths for your width/length.  

Decide if you want:

Lightly gathered skirt — multiply by 1-1/2 times the sofas ‘s widths

Fully-gathered skirt — multiply the width by 2 times

Pleats all around — take a lot of fabric, like a kilt. I don’t recommend them here, but they look really cute on chairs!

Pleats on just the sofa corners, and maybe the front and back centers — this is what I am using since my width of usable fabric is barely once around my sofa. I am using two of my remaining, original, pre-seamed pieces of the drop-cloth for the skirt (Less sewing!). I have another fabric that I am going to add-in at each spot, then pleat the drop-cloth fabric over the top of this insert. 

  Photos of the finished Settee Cover next time!

*Update 2018*

Making a Settee Cover ~ Part 1

Part 2

Ruching ~ Part 4

Making a Sofa Slipcover ~ The Reveal

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