Tag: trends in design

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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Last time  we left off I was getting ready to show you how to measure for the back-piece of the sofa.  My original measurements showed this sofa as 33″ from the floor to where the center of the wood curve is at the “upper back.”  This settee used to have a decorative oak arch along the top, but I grew tired of it and it made the sofa look really 90’s, so I took it off, padded the space, and stapled and pulled the upper back fabrics together.  This has created a new “arch” that looks great, but is a bit unsightly the way I finished it, especially since I move the sofas around a lot and like them away from the walls. 🙂  In addition, now without that oak piece, the added benefit is the two settees look more like a pair. 🙂  Anyway, this is one of the reasons I wanted to make a slipcover for this and the other settee. 😉

1. Step 6, really — For the “back-piece” of the sofa cover, cut BELOW your drawn line either 1/2″ or 5/8″ for your seam allowance. Also, if you have put that “drop cloth seam” over at your sofa’s edge like I did, above, cut that off, too.  Cut it off just PAST the seam (in my case, just to the left of the seam).  This will create a seam-allowance for joining your “arm-piece” to the “front” and “back” pieces.  The right side was already up-to-and-slightly-overlapping the right edge, so no need to cut anything over there except where the fabric needs to be cut off for the arm.  The rest of the length of yardage, put aside for just a second.  
2. Find the center of the curved-over “front piece.”  Place a glass-head pin there. This can be easily done by pulling the piece up, folding the piece itself in half and marking the middle with your pin and/or marking with a pencil, or by doing the following.  Tip:  This is how you can also mark-off “store-bought pattern pieces” without having to cut out those little triangles or squares where you will match-up pattern pieces — just put a 1/4″ slit perpendicular into the fabric, like you would do when “grading a curve.” This eliminates the need to cut-out those “tabs.” Makes getting to your sewing faster!!! 
3. Now, re-tuck and lay the “front piece” back down along the sofa’s upper back-edge.  Carefully, realign the drawn edge back along the wood edge.  Realign the side edges, which you should have drawn-in before so you can see where to stitch after everything comes off. 🙂 If you haven’t already done this, do so now. 🙂 *** Sorry if I didn’t make this very clear in the last post!  Trying to think of it all. 🙂 — (top photo)
4. Rehang the back-piece — Take the remaining length of fabric and pin it back to the “front piece.” I did this with overlapping my 5/8″ seam in the middle (fold this fabric in half along the cut-off edge, pin as for the “front-piece”, above, finding the center point in this next piece, the new “back piece,” going ABOVE the curved line of the settee’s back. It will look like a big box at first. 

1. Redraw the wooden piece’s curve onto this new “back-piece.”  I like that you can feel the wood piece below and can use it as a guide.  Your sofa may not have one, so make an arc as best as you can.  Cut your “seam-allowance” ABOVE this newly-drawn curve.  Now you have the upper curve of the “back-piece!”  After I drew the curve, I unpinned and took the whole canvas off moving over to my table to cut the curve over there.  I wanted to make sure my “seam-allowance” for this piece was going to be correct.  I folded my fabric over, rechecking my center point.  This also gives you the point to match-up with the “front piece.” Make sure you have enough fabric to get to your sofa’s side edges.  If not, add in fabric with extra seams to the “back piece” on both sides to make your piece work for you. 
2. Measure the heights from the five pins along the back’s lower seam will be. These should all be the same height as your “deck-height” from the “front seat-deck piece.”  Adjust as necessary. Our floor is slightly irregular as we laid it ourselves.  My measurement is 12-3/4″, so now measure from each pin vertically up to where a vertical line would hit along your sofa-back’s curve.  Write those measurements onto your drawn diagram of your Back View.  Transfer all those lengths to your “back piece,” then cut off the remaining fabric length.  This is what I have already done in this photograph. 

1. Here I have shown several things at once: * Measuring up from the floor, you can see where the pins have been placed along the back (above the blue painter’s tape, at 12-3/4″/12.75″ off of the floor) where the sofa skirt will attach. * The yard stick is there as a guide to show various lengths — the height of the pin at that point, about 33″ off the floor. * The painter’s tape at the upper center along the curve shows the upper-middle of the sofa where both pieces are pinned together.

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4. My original post didn’t include this next photograph, so I hope this helps!

   

   ***

   I hope you are enjoying this little series on how to make a slipcover for your sofa!

   🙂

   I have tried to make this simple enough for anyone to sew.

   
   

   I may not have enough photographs for those of you who are beginners but I’ve tried to be thorough in the written details.

   Write me and I will be happy to help!