How to Sew a Slipcover, Part 3 – DIY Home Decor Tutorial

Homestretch, dudes and dudettes!

If you need them, here are links to Part 1 and Part 2 of this tutorial.

Step 1

Now that you have all your muslin pattern pieces traced and cut out of your Real Live Slipcover fabric, sew it together! Match up the guide lines you’ve marked and Do It To It.

Now slap that baby on the couch for a test fit.

Step 1

Here’s the back and sides of mine getting a test fit on the ol’ coucheroo.

If you’re adding piping to yours, I find it’s easiest to sew the piping to the most awkwardly shaped piece first. So for my arm piece, I sewed the piping to the front arm piece, then I sewed the piece that wraps aroooound the arm to the piped front-arm-piece. Get it?Read more…

How to Sew a Slipcover, Part 2 – DIY Home Decor Tutorial

Part 2, FINALLY!

I know, I move at turtle speed sometimes.

Part 1 is here if you need it.

So let’s get started. Here’s my naked couch, stripped of all it’s cushiony goodness. (It seems weird that this is the first photo of the actual couch I’ve posted. Kinda dumb, in hindsight.)

The couch.

Step 1

Last time I told you to go collect some thrift store sheets to use as a muslin, yes?

You COULD forgo the muslin and use these steps on your actual fabric, if you like to gamble, or you’re super ballsy, or really confident. I’m usually all of those, but I still made a muslin. I really didn’t want to eff this up, so I went the safe route, but if you want to roll the dice, be my guest. You’re dangerous!

Grab a sheet and tack it to part of the surface of your couch. I’m going to start with the front of one arm.

You can just stab some pins through the sheet so it lays flat. Or if you don’t want to put pins in your couch for some reason, I suppose you could use tape or something like that.

Step 1. Stab the couch!

You can ignore all the marks for now. When you have it laying nice and flat and even, trim around it, leaving a good seam allowance PLUS extra. 3 inches would be good for now.  Mine has already been trimmed… otherwise it would’ve just looked like a mess of a sheet draped over the arm of my couch.

We’ll trim it down more when we’ve got it all pinned and fitted.

Step 2

Choose another surface that abuts (hehe) the piece you’ve already pinned and trimmed. In my case, I’m going to do the piece that wraps all the way around the arm.

Pin it in place the same way I did with the front of the arm. Now, start pinning the two pieces together where they meet.  It’s usually best to start at the center (in my example, I started pinning at the top of the arm) of the soon-to-be seam. Avoid puckers, you want nice clean seams. Some designs might require some darts or gathers, you’ll have to figure out what works best for your piece of furniture.

Step 2

Pull the pieces taught, but not so tight that you stretch the fabric out of whack and wind up with wonky muslin pattern pieces.Read more…