Channel-back Chair Slipcover

Another day, another project.  At least, that is what my life seems to be lately!    Since I will be offering various sewing and craft services to the public, it seemed like a good idea to share my projects, results, and thoughts with you as I go. 

My current project is slip-covering a chair in my sun room.  This chair was compromised from the beginning when the upholsterer ran my floral fabric sideways!  (Another story for another time…)  For the last couple of years it has been one of the beds of choice for my dogs, who spend the night in that room.  Needless to say, it isn’t people-friendly anymore!   

My plan is to make a slipcover and put it on the chair, then cover it with a vinyl piece that will keep the chair itself clean and dog-smell-free.  After cleaning and deodorizing the chair, I went ahead and did the vinyl cover, cutting to fit and sewing around the front of the arm.  You’ll see the finished vinyl piece later…  

Getting started on the slipcover, the first steps were to prewash the fabric, then iron it.  

By prewashing, I know that I will not have a problem later when I wash the slipcover!  It is worth the extra steps.   When the fabric was ready, I measured all of the cording needed and went ahead and prepared all the cording in the lengths I would need.

The cushion came next.  The picture shows tracing the cushion to get a pattern.  You can see how yucky that cushion is!  I took the old fabric off and threw it away.  Also in the picture is the zipper section that goes in the back of the cushion.  

The next picture shows starting the fitting.  I knew this chair would be a little more difficult because it is a “channel back”, meaning there are deep channels down the inside back.  If you are upholstering, no problem – you cut new pieces from the old and sew them together.   This leads me to mention that upholstery is generally much easier than slipcovering (once the staples and old fabric have been removed) because you can use the old pieces as a pattern.  Plus for the most part in upholstery you attach one piece at a time to the frame, adjusting and finalizing as you go, stapling in place.  With a slipcover, you have to pin or mark pieces, then take the pieces to your sewing machine to sew together, then put them back on and keep going.  (I used pins, said “ouch” a lot.)   And the piece has to be able to be put on, fit tightly, and come back off for washing. 

With this chair, the channels had to be tucked, and left as deep as possible so the tucks could be pushed into the channels in the finished piece.   It was time-consuming, but turned out.

After preparing the inside back, I cut the under-seat-and-front piece to size, then fitted the inside arm from both sides onto it and sewed in together.  (The inside arm goes from the cushion area up and around the arm to the outside of the chair.)   Next was pinning and sewing the outside sides (underneath the arm) to the inside arm.  The front of the arms was the next tedious part!  The pictures show pinning the arm (as the others, with the wrong side of the fabric facing out) and the finished product (right side out).  

Almost done!  Next I attached the inside back (with the channels) to the inside arm and seat.  (Note that you have to leave several inches of extra length in the seams connecting the seat to the inside arms and to the inside back to tuck in.)   Then the back cording and back piece.  The back piece is easy except for the zipper, which isn’t bad, just more work.  Finally, the cording around the bottom.  I went back and forth about whether to have a skirt, but decided against it.  So I attached elastic pieces where the legs were to keep the slipcover from riding up.  

 

I used a zipper in the side of the back (shown above) to close the slipcover. 

I think the slipcover turned out well.   I worked on this over about 3 days, so easier said than done!

The vinyl piece I laid on top of the slipcover for the dogs may or may not stand up.  We have large dogs (standard poodle and  Labradoodle) and their claws and size just may be too much.  But we will see…  

Next  up – possibly Lord Farquaad costumes for the upcoming Shrek The Musical performance.  Should be fun!