From Drags to Riches
by
Estelle
4 Materials
$50
1 Day
Medium
Our leather couch really needed new life, but it was way to expensive to upholster it with leather again...
This is what our leather couch looked like. People told me it had character, but you can only push character so far! It is about 30 years old as was used in a TV room, so it really got the best of the previous and our family.
This was the one arm rest ...
This is what the seat on the right hand side looked like. As you can sea, it was in need of desperate repair or upholstery. But who can afford to upholster a three seat leather couch today? It would cost a fortune, so we decided to try something else.
There were two really painful steps: The first was to measure each piece of the couch on it's own in order to make a pattern for it. The second was to actually make the pattern. This was a first and we did not know how we were going to go through with it, but we had to try.
We bought a nice, soft but durable material for the job. Upholstery material was just to stiff for our liking. I wanted to have a nice soft slip cover to throw in the washing machine if needed. We have a lot of dust where we live.
We used chalk to draw each piece of the pattern onto the material. I made two lines. One was the cutting line, and the inside one was where I was going to stitch it.
Each piece was cut out carefully after we checked our sizes again.... just to make sure it was correct.
Each piece was folded up and marked with a piece of paper and a pin to know which is which when I started the sewing. There were quite a few pieces to keep track of. The important thing was to sew the right pieces together.
I just want to share a hint with you: It's much easier to place the pins diagonal to the lines than parallel. Now you can sew without having to take out each pin as you go. The needle slips over the pin when it gets to it. Just go slower when you get to a pin.
Each time a few pieces of the pattern were sewn together, I placed it on the couch to make sure that it fits properly. It's easier to make adjustments immediately than afterwards when the whole thing is finished. It turned out to be quite a heavy finished article. It was 5 meters material of 150 cm wide.
And what felt like forever actually ended well. We had a brand new couch for a fraction of the cost of having it upholstered with leather. And we are both very pleased with our effort!
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Comments
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2 of 17 comments
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I am inspired to try it again on my 2 chairs. Last slipcover I made was in 1976. Think I just convinced myself it would be too much trouble. You proved it isn't too difficult. Thanks.
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It turned out beautiful....great job
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