Sewing Sofa Slipcovers: Part 1

This project is a huge pain in the ass.  I'm not finished yet, but thought I'd share what is done so far and how I did it in an effort to restore my enthusiasm.  If nothing else, this project has done its job of keeping me occupied and off the Internet. 

Let me begin with a warning:  do not do this.  Or, okay, do it, but only if you really cannot afford a new couch.  I should have just bought new furniture (yes, wasteful, but dear lord! Way easier).  I guess if you are a great seamstress and have endless free time and no kids or no need to sit on the sofa in question for days and days then, sure, you can give it a go.  Otherwise, seriously, Pottery Barn is your friend. 

This is how 40 yards of 54" fabric is shipped to you from Fabric.com:

I'm only 5 feet tall.  This is nearly a third of my body weight. Awkward isn't really strong enough of a word. 

If you follow any sort of "real" directions you will at this point be measuring out everything before cutting.  The math worksheets inside "Custom Slipcovers Made Easy" ought to earn you college credit. At least a unit.  Needless to say I did not do any of that.  Instead, I followed the "Lazy Girl's Guide to Custom Slipcovers" and just did some draping and cutting.

Down the back I have a good 2.5 inches onto the floor.  I regularly have my couch vacuumed and steam cleaned because that's how I am, but I realize that is not typical so remember to vacuum and clean well before you start because you don't want to be doing it in the middle.

Since the fabric is a solid color I just railroaded it which makes things much simpler.  If this is your first slipcover (like me) DO NOT choose a pattern.  Just don't.  It is already enough work.   Remember you want to drape the fabric inside out.  The backside of my fabric is a bit lighter then how it will actually look.

More draping and pinning. In this photo four sections:  outside back, right arm over,  inside back and bench.   Cushions are removed in this photo and I believe were being made into fortresses in front of the TV at this point.

Instead of draping the inside back all the way down onto the bench I put a seam between the bench and the inside back.  My reason for doing this is that my bench could then drape all the way to the floor without a skirt.  Ruffles aren't really my style.  The important note here is that you have to make sure the bench piece is wide enough to wrap around the outside to meet with the side pieces (not in the above photo yet).  You'll have to trim quite a bit around the inside arms, but it will be better then having to piece together yet another bit of fabric. 

All these pins are wrong.  Every single one.

Here is a tip for beginners that ought to be tattooed on my face:  RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER.  I pinned across the back and along the inside arms before realizing I'd pinned it wrong.  Yeah.  That was rough. I was too busy trying to get it straight and tight.  A stupid mistake that cost me a chunk of time.  Another hint:  you will pin your hands.  It will hurt.  Drink wine.  It will help. 

I used something like 300 pins.  My fancy magnetic pin cushion was worth the investment.  I love mine!  I can't imagine what I would have been doing without it.  Individually poking them into my standard tomato?  No thanks. 

"Lazy Girl's Guide" is skimpy on some details which becomes evident once you are trying to fit the fabric around curves and along angles.  I had to make darts along the corners which wasn't difficult or anything- just wasn't in the directions.  This is where the overwhelming detail and complicated techniques in the "Slipcovers Made Easy" book are helpful in pointing you in the right direction.  Not that I was going to be doing faux-box corners or anything, but at least I knew I wasn't crazy that it wasn't looking right without the darts. 

Cutting bias strips is difficult since my cutting table isn't actually wide enough to cut 42" fabric at a full 45 degree angle.  I cut half than flipped the fabric and cut the other half.  It worked.  Don't use disappearing ink as it'll be gone before you get to cutting.  Use tailors' chalk.

After that initial bout of pinning, I needed to pin the arm fronts which I needed welting in order to complete.  I considered making the welting the easy way, just folding fabric straight over cording, but in the end decided that I was going to make it the right way, encased in bias cut strips that were pieced together one at a time.  I did try to figure out how to make continuous loop bias tape to save some effort, but after watching video after video on YouTube I was still confused and so nixed that too.  I did use my rotary cutter for the first time since I failed with it early last year.  They were using rotary cutters in all of the videos so I picked up some tips on how to use them properly, if not how to make the loop.  Kind of in love with it now. 

Another totally awesome tool to use when making your own welting or piping is this do-dad: 

My bias strips are two inches (roughly, even with the rotary cutter some are a little straighter then others) and the cord is cotton piping in size 8/32.  The 4th grade math student in me so wants to reduce that number properly.

The do-dad is magnetic so sticks to the base plate and pushes the cording up along the zipper foot nice and tight.  I have zero idea when or why I purchased it, or what it is really called, I just happened to find it among my notions while searching for my zipper foot and was pretty stoked I had it.  It will also help you gather pins when you leave the magnetic pin cushion in the other room.  FYI. 

I made 7.5 yards of finished welting.  The whole process, cutting bias strips and sewing, took me about 3 hours.  I will need to make an additional 20 yards for the cushions and then double the whole amount for the second couch.  Yeah.  That should be 10-12 hours of work I imagine.

I then pinned the fronts to the arms inserting the welting along the seams.  I cut into the arm drape where I wanted to run the welt horizontally across the side of the couch.  That was unnerving since I'd already pinned the inside of  the arm to the bench and inside back and was concerned I'd mess it up and have to re-do all the work. 

This eats up pins like crazy.

After all the pinning it is finally time to sew.  Now in "Lazy Girl's Guide" she bastes all the seams by hand before taking it to her machine.  That sounded like a good plan to me so I tried it.  Terrible.  I don't know what I did wrong, but something was not right.  I kept snapping the thread and was really burned out with the whole effort.  I quit basting after one one arm.  Maybe I should have taken a break. 

In "Sewing Made Easy" she doesn't baste, but does outline with marker where she wants the seams.  The problem with that is you have to plan ahead of time how you intend to put the fabric through the machine which spatially I cannot do.   Unless she was doing it on both sides of the future seam?  Maybe that would have worked.  Anyway, I said screw it and dragged the pinned mess to my dinning room.



I'm telling you:  buy a new couch.  Ballard Designs, slipcovered "Davenport" $999 for the frame $280-450 for slips.  Sure, no down cushions, but no million pins pricking you either.


This was difficult.  And all kinds of disastrous.  There is simply way too much fabric!  A tip for beginners (that I will be using on the second slipcover):  pin one seam at a time, sew, check the fit, then pin the next seam, sew, check the fit, repeat-repeat-repeat.  It may seem more time efficient to pin all at once and then sew it all at once, which it may very well be, but don't do it if you don't know what you are doing.  

Completely exhausted, I turned it right side out and put it on the couch.  It did not fit well and I had bunching where I'd sewn through two layers on accident in several places.  I did not take a picture because I was pretty sure I was going to give up.  Wish I had now. (Taken photos, not the giving up.) I talked myself into trying to fix it after a couple of days of moping.  I had to rip out and re-pin a bunch of seams, all of them along the arms.  

Cushions back on the couch. We use this room on a daily basis for hanging out and watching TV, playing games, etc. It being off limits for an extended period of time was not possible so we just used while pinned up.

 

You can see how much brighter the yellow and dark coral will make the room.  One day.  Far, far in the future.

Part 2 will be the cushions and I hope to do them this week.  We'll see how it goes with my time.  And then, of course, I have to do the second couch.  Good grief!

Linkys:





 

Halloween 2011: Snow White, Twice.

I've had an exhausting and stressful week.  I turned to Diet Pepsi and my sewing machine for solace.  Okay, and ice cream too.  Shut-up.

Thursday night I finally attached the Snow White skirt to the bodice I finished weeks ago.  It did not turn out well.

HA! 
This is the only picture I took of Snow White v.1 for obvious reasons.  Scroll down to preview v.2 if this horrifies your sewing sensabilites. 

Clearly, this is hilarious and in no way is it wearable.  I'm going to be so sad when Abby gets old enough to have taste:  she loved this rendition and kept telling me how beautiful it turned out.  I had to bribe her out of it!  Her love for it was too sweet for words and made me happy to have a daughter.  I tried hard to not giggle as she twirled around blissfully in this awful, ill-conceived costume.  My husband did not even try.  He just laughed, loudly.

So what went wrong?  Many, many things.

- the bodice is way too wide.  While it fits well through the chest her shoulders aren't even close. This was the only part of the dress that I used the pattern for so I'm not sure why it turned out so huge.  The sleeves are half way down her arms!

- around the waist it looks like she's used the dress to shoplift 10 bags of marshmallows.  I did the gathering on the skirt with a cording technique instead of gathering stitches which turned out not to be that much easier and it just added bulk.  Sewing it to the bodice evenly proved impossible, hence the weird pleat on one side and the total lack of a subtle v-front.  It seems to be oddly twisted too.  WTF?  Terrible. 

- you can't tell by looking at it but despite the wide top it was super difficult for her to get in and out of it.  There were some contorted moves with her arms that had to go on, only to look like it was falling off of her when she was wearing it.

I waited for Abby to go to bed and then took the whole thing apart, stitch by stitch.  That took an hour.

And then I stared at the pieces.  And stared at them some more.  Then looked up Snow White dresses on Etsy to make sure I could order a decent homemade one from someone.  There were lots of pretty ones, (I especially loved this country-inspired cotton one, though Abby would be disappointed).  That said, I only found two with a velvet bodice and proper sleeves.  This one is $500 but is really nice.  Still, $500 for a child's costume and the skirt portion was cotton, not satin.  This second one is $329.99 and is stunning but I don't like the sequined ric-rac and the sleeves aren't inset, but red with blue ribbon strips tacked over, plus I intend to make the cape out of red velvet not satin.

I then went to the fabric store and re-purchased all the fabric in case I had to start from scratch. I didn't and now I have an extra 2 yards each of navy stretch velvet and shiny gold satin.  Can you return fabric?

Snow White, v.2 is much improved, though not perfect.

This dress cannot attend your party as it has a prior engagement with my ironing board.  Regrets.

-I cut the cord entirely from the skirt, separating the lining and tulle as well.  It was therapeutic in a way.  Luckily, I'd hemmed it a little long anyway so losing those inches was not a problem.

-Then I took a deep breath and my shears and sliced up the back seam on the bodice.  Scary!  I cut about a quarter inch out of center (lining included) and then folded in about a quarter inch on either side and hemmed the raw edges.  I then stitched a strip of black Velcro into it.  This not only made the bodice fit better it also made getting in and out of it about a million times easier.  It could still be a little tighter and if I'd re-cut the bodice I would have raised the neckline an inch.  It is a touch low for a 4 year old. The Velcro closure is a little bulky, but it will be covered by her cape eventually anyway.

Velcro to the rescue! 

-I ditched the lining and the tulle on the skirt portion.  Instead of doing a gathering stitch I decided to just pin pleats into the skirt portion.  It was a lot easier to control and keep even all the way around and I didn't have to worry about breaking a thread. The v-front could be more pronounced, but I'm okay with how it is now. 

-Now that the sleeves aren't at her elbows you can see how puffy and pretty they turned out. 

I also cut her hair this weekend.  My scissor skillz are immense!  Needless to say she loves it.  I may or may not try a crinoline under it.  We'll see.

Up next is Snow White's cape and the stand-up white collar.  Hopefully, that will go a lot smoother!  Couldn't possibly go worse.

Linkys!:

Halloween 2011: Homemade Snow White costume, in progress!

**update to this costume here**

Abby wants to be Snow White for Halloween this year.  In the past she's been a Sweet Pea, a Bee and last year she was Little Red Riding Hood.  She's 4, it's not a long list. 

This is a much bigger project then I anticipated.  I'm using pattern Simplicity 2817, purchased for a whole $1 during Joann's pattern sale last month.  The idea of paying $18 for a pattern now seems ridiculous. It was one of many I bought that day.  I was very pleased with myself.



Both these dresses are pictured with full crinolines which are not mentioned once in the directions or pattern.


I looked through the reviews on PatternReview.com and was convinced that I could complete this costume on my own.  Of course, I've already made a ton of changes so I'm not sure why I bothered looking it up.  Even without my changes, I'm getting the feeling I was wrong in my assessment that this would be easy for the following reasons:

1)  I've never used a commercial pattern before.  All the patterns I've used to date have been from books or the Internet or I've made them myself.  A commercial tissue pattern is a WHOLE other beast.  It's unwieldy and fragile, it has complicated encoded directions, I have to use transfer paper and a pattern wheel.  You have to line up notches and dots... dots I forgot to transfer. There are no step by step pictures, just confusing line drawings.  It's kind of a nightmare.


There are TWO of these evil things and two pages of double sided directions.

 2)  I've never made sleeves before.  You'll note in all my previous clothing projects I've managed to avoid sleeves.  Snow White, however, is not Snow White without her trademark (ridiculously complicated) puff sleeves.  The sleeves I decided to make using the directions from Craftiness is Not Optional instead of the applique directions in the pattern.  I'm not sure if this has made things easier or harder for me since I've never done applique work either, but I like the look of the insets so much better then teardrop shapes being sewn on top. That just seems... lame. The insets are far more "authentic" if such a thing can be said about an animated princess.  I also made the sleeves with the navy velvet instead of the standard light blue satin because I've always thought that was just weird looking.  Sorry, Disney.  Mine are especially puffy per Abby's request.


If you are making this yourself you'll want to make the arm bands longer then the pattern piece actually is, especially if you are doing insets instead of the applique, also I'd make the band a bit wider so that you can hem it.  Since the pattern doesn't call for you to finish the edge at all (!?!#!) I sewed on the cording rather then re-cut, re-fuse and re-sew.  I just skipped the elastic entirely.  On the bodice instead of inserting piping into the front seam I sewed the pretty cording down the front.  Just gives it a bit more detail.  Remember to apply it before you sew the lining to the velvet entirely.

3)  I'm not using cotton, but velvet and satin. And tulle. And cording.  All of which I've never used before.  The costume satin is awful quality too.  Fraying all over the place!  I feel like I have to self seam it before using it.   Plus, it and the velvet are both slippery for lack of a better word and don't stay pinned like I need.  I've had to pull out at least four seams and I'm not even half done with the costume!  The cording has begun fraying too and I have no idea how to fix that. 


The inside is Fray City.  I lined the bodice with bleached muslin that I added interfacing to for structure, but if I were to do it again I'd probably use a navy cotton or face the inside with velvet (assuming I could teach myself that technique).

 I'm not giving up yet, but I'm far from satisfied.  The bodice seems to be a little large even with the darts (another first), but I keep thinking she'll need to wear a turtleneck if it is too cold so I don't want to make it any smaller.  I'll be lining the skirt which it is not called for and putting gold colored tulle between the lining and the skirt (which is more a gold satin then a primary yellow) to give it fullness, otherwise it will just lie flat which is not what Abby will want, but I'm not sure how that will effect the gathering or how it will fit on to the bodice.  Guess we'll find out.

I have a lot more work to do to finish this. Not looking forward to the cape.  See!  This is why I start so early!