A do-it-yourself chair cover can be completelychange the appearance of the room and hide the worn, worn out or color-inconsistent silhouette of an old chair. Today, any housewife can make it at home from leftover fabric, specially purchased decorative material or thick curtains that have not yet been used. This process is quite fast and economical.
Scheme of the chair structure.To properly attach the cover to the furniture, it is better to use wide strips of fabric. One end of the strips is sewn to the back of the cover, and the other to the existing upholstery of the chair. For a tighter fit of the product on the chair, you can use pieces of foam, which are placed between the cover and the furniture body. It is simpler and easier to sew a cover for a chair with straight perpendicular angles at home, much more difficult - with curly and decorative elements. Soft chairs with open decorative strips are usually covered, but if wooden elements are present only on the armrests, then you can sew a cover for the chair, having previously wrapped the wooden parts of the furniture with batting. How to make a cover? Sewing a cover is very simple when there is desire, accuracy, the necessary materials and tools.
Materials and tools for work
Scheme for taking measurements from a chair. To sew a cover for a chair, you need to have:
- decorative fabric;
- cord or braid for edging;
- zipper of the required length;
- the required thickness of upholstery batting;
- thin polyurethane foam;
- sewing machine;
- flexible measuring tape and chalk;
- Pins, furniture nails, buttons or staples with stapler;
- muslin;
- Iron with a steaming function and an ironing board;
- Scissors tailors, ruler, temples, sharply sharpened pencil.
The chair cover can have different shapes, butit is always necessary to design and sew it taking into account the features of the furniture and its structural component. The ideal configuration of the backrest can be one that has a straight shape, widens or narrows towards the top. Such backrests hold a short and long cover well. If the chair has a non-standard, figured backrest, you can sew a decorative short pillowcase for it, which will cover approximately 1/3 or 2/3 of the backrest. Return to contents</a>
How to choose a fabric
Scheme for tightening the cover pattern.It is better and more practical to make a chair cover from a dense, printed, wrinkle-resistant decorative fabric. You should not use thick, heavy furniture fabrics intended for upholstery. Heavy fabrics are difficult to machine stitch, are difficult to drape, and fit roughly on the curves of furniture. To make the manufacture of the cover simpler and less labor-intensive, it is better to choose a fabric that does not require pattern matching, for example, a single-color fabric or one with a small print over the entire field. You should be especially careful when choosing striped, checkered, and patterned fabrics, as they may require matching lines both horizontally and vertically. Fabric consumption is primarily determined by the size of the chair and its design, and also depends on the width of the fabric, the size of the rapport, and the layout of the pattern on the fabric. As a rule, a standard upholstered chair will require from 6.5 to 7.5 m of fabric, and a wide one - 10 m. from 9.5 to 11 m. Moreover, the specified calculations include edging and gathering with folds at the corners. When purchasing fabric, you should take into account the additional fabric consumption for ears, decorative gathers, skirts and folds. In general, a chair cushion requires approximately 1 m to 1.5 m of fabric, for gathers and folds you should additionally add another 1 m of fabric to the volume for a standard chair and 2 m for a wide model. Return to the table of contents</a>
Pattern development
Pattern diagram for a chair cover.A standard cover consists of 4 important structural elements: seat and back covers, armrests and a skirt that goes down from the seat to the floor. To get the exact dimensions of the elements, you should measure the chair correctly. It is better to measure it with a flexible tape measure. You should measure:
- height and width of the chair;
- seat and backrest dimensions;
- the sizes of armrests.
Once the measurements have been taken, you can begindeveloping a pattern. The easiest way to make a pattern for a cover is to use existing elements of the chair upholstery with pins and inexpensive fabric, such as muslin. The seams on the cover should be located in the same places as on the upholstery, but at the same time, exclude complex details and elements that disrupt the perfect fit of the cover. To make a pattern for the inner and outer parts of the back of the cover, you should accurately measure the length and width of the outer part of the back between the upholstery seams, and then cut out the parts on muslin, taking into account the allowances. The finished pattern should be laid out on the surface of the back of the chair and pinned to the upholstery with pins. In this case, it is necessary to smooth the fabric well over the entire surface and exclude its creasing and distortion. When the pattern of the part fits perfectly on the chair, you should do similar operations with the other elements. Return to the table of contents</a>
If the chair has wooden armrests
Chair re-upholstery diagram.If the furniture has wooden armrests, batting will help to refine them when making the cover. The armrest handrails should be wrapped in a thick layer of batting, then covered with this material and stitched on both sides to the seat and back of the chair. This operation will allow you to form a soft wide armrest that fits harmoniously into the design of the entire chair structure. You can attach the batting to the armrest using a furniture stapler. When making a pattern for the left and right armrests, you should make two patterns - front and back. You need to attach the front pattern of the armrest to the front surface of the chair, having previously folded the material in half and marked its central longitudinal thread with a pencil. The lower edges of the material must necessarily overlap the specified frill seam by 1.5 cm. The inner surface of the armrest pattern should be connected to the front part at the place of the supposed outer seam. Moreover, its inner surface should have an impressive reserve on all edges, approximately 18-25 cm on each side. This is necessary, since one side will go onto the inner surface of the back, the other - onto the front surface of the armrest, and the third - onto the lower edge of the workpiece placed on the seat. When all the parts of the cover, including those for the armrests, are cut out and attached to the upholstery of the chair, they should be signed, checked for the presence of the necessary darts, folds and gathers, and then unfastened and removed from the chair. The resulting parts will allow you to accurately transfer the pattern to the fabric and perform the cutting. Return to the table of contents</a>
The transfer of pattern on the fabric and cutting
The muslin pattern should be rationallylay it out on the fabric taking into account the pattern, then pin it to the material and transfer it to the fabric using chalk, patterns and a ruler. If the pattern does not contain seam allowances, they should be added now. Then cut out the parts. Iron the patterns well from top to bottom along the longitudinal thread. Before you start connecting the pattern parts, they should be laid out on a flat surface and think through the sequence of joining actions. First, you should stitch using a basting stitch and sew all the small parts, such as darts or gathers, using a machine, and then stitch and sew the large parts. In this case, you will not have to fiddle with a bulky, unmanageable cover. To ensure that the seams are strong and do not come apart, it is better to use a strong nylon thread and an average stitch length of 2.5 cm. Places where there are thickenings from several layers of fabric are better to sew with a machine needle marked 90-14 or 100-16. Decorative piping should be added to places where the cover is subject to friction. When machine stitching seams, do not pull the fabric and piping. If the edged seam is superimposed on another, 1 cm of the cord at the end of the piping should be removed to eliminate thickening. A zipper should be sewn into the back of the cover. Accessories for a chair cover - various pillows and bolsters - are very relevant accessories today and are appropriate for almost any type of soft chair. They are a simple and convenient decoration that can add variety to the design. Thanks to them, you can independently change the look of the chair, make it elegant, bright or, on the contrary, calm and strict. You can make additions to the chair both from the fabric from which the cover is made, and from any contrasting fabrics of any design and configuration.
