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)

Here is my sketch showing the “side part’s” measurements.

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.”