Flirty and Skirty Slipcovers & Tutorial

Voila! They are finally done! All four slipcovers for my new/old and refurbished dining room chairs. (I posted about them back here). I'll take more photos later of the room, but for now I will share the process with you.

When I walk you through the instructions how to make these, I will refer to the back skirt as the small section of skirt that is at the back of the chair. The other part of the skirt I will refer to as the full skirt - the piece that goes around the two sides and along the front.

My inspiration.....
....came from an issue of Country Living magazine. The slipcover above was designed by Raphael Designs. They have a wonderful website where you can purchase custom slipcovers, however I am doing this project on a small budget so I opted to make them myself.

This is the finished chair. I painted the wood a creamy white then sanded the edges here and there. To give the carvings some depth, I applied a very small amount of Brie wax that is an oak color.

I used drop cloth fabric to cover the seats with and glued on a natural colored braid that was purchased at JoAnn's fabrics. To make the drop cloth fabric really soft (it can be very course), wash it a couple of times and each time add about 2 or so cups of fabric softner to the rinse cycle.

My vision was to have a fun and feminine skirt with lots of pleating....and for the chair to be able to "show a little leg" from underneath.

Ready to design?

I think that the most difficult part was making the pattern for the seat.

For the paper I used a roll of the brown paper that is used to wrap parcels with.

Cut out a piece of the paper that is larger than the seat of the chair and lay it over the seat.

I molded the paper to the seat by running my finger along the edge and crimped the shape.

Use a pencil to draw the lines where you have crimped.

When cutting the actual seat pattern out, add about 5/8" to the edges. This will allow for your seam allowance.

Below is the seat piece. See the top portion? To make a finished edge (the part that goes next to the ladder back of the chair) fold over about 1/8" twice and then top stitch. note: I did not clip the curved edge being as the fabric tends to unravel rather easily.

You will cut out a back skirt piece and a full skirt piece. (please see the first photo for reference).

To figure out the size of these pieces, measure the length where the back skirt and full skirt will be attached. Double this measurement. I added one inch at both sides to allow for the finished edges.

Measure how far down you want the skirt to go and also add one inch for the finished edge.

The diminsions for mine were:

Back skirt: 25 inches long and 16 inches in length.

Full skirt: 96 inches long and 16 inches in length.

Ties (four per slipcover): 5 inches wide and 25 inches in length.

To hem the edges, turn over 1/4" and then 1/4" again and stitch.

Below you can see where the skirt was attached to the seat piece. What I did when attaching the skirts, I pinned each end to each side. This will give you an idea of how much of the fabric is left at each side when doing your hand pleating. I cannot tell you how much this tip helps. It will save you time so that you won't have to pin and then un-pin the pleats.

I hand pleated the skirts with random pleating. When folding the pleats, alter the direction of the pleat so that you will get a fuller pleated look.

I like the look of an edge with cording, however I wanted a softer edge. I also find that cording wears out faster.

For the edges, I sewed the piece with a rounded edge...

...by gathering the pleats in this fashion. To do this, when you come to the corners, just make a small curve in the seam, not a sharp corner.

Above is the finished hem.

Below is what the back skirt looks like once attached.

I didn't take a photo of how to make the ties, but what I did was to cut out four ties per chair. To finish the edges of the ties, turn over 1/4" and press down and then turn over another 1/4" and stitch. To make this easier to stitch, I finished ONE end first and then the sides. You will ONLY need to finish one of the ends as the other end will be attached to the body of the skirt.

To attach the ties, turn the slipcover over so that the "wrong" side is facing you, as above.

Place the RIGHT side of the tie to the WRONG side of the slipcover. Align the edges, pin and sew, as also shown below.

I used 1/4" seam allowances and double stitched the seams. Finish off the raw edges with a zig-zag stitch or use a surger. You will want to finish the edges as this fabric unravels very easily.

Now I must say that Duhgall and Fiona were very well behaved as I stayed busy sewing....

.....and Miss Fiona insisted on sitting in front of me as I took the final photos. She is such a poser!!!

So this is it.....

...now run along and get busy!!

I hope that my instructions make sense. If not, you can always send me an email. Really, these are not hard to do, just time consuming. But well worth it when you can say, "I did it myself!"