Chair Seat Covers, Part 2

This is the second of two posts that I began writing back in May of this year....the first part can be found in my previous blog post: Chair Seat Covers, Part 1. This Part 2 post has more photos and a bit more detail about how the seat covers were assembled.

As part of the original project, our cousin asked for padded covers for her bar stools to match the kitchen chair covers.

Here's a quick look at the finished bar stool cover:

Padded Chair Cover Padded Chair Cover

The covers for these chairs were a little more complicated for two reasons: 1) they're padded and 2) to fit around the harp, the extension at the back of the seat needed an opening in the middle.

I began by making a muslin version of the padded seat cover. To make the basic pattern, I taped a piece of Pattern Ease tracing material to the bar stool and traced the shape of the seat with pencil.

Padded Chair Cover

The pattern for the seat was used to cut out the foam padding. I used a water soluble pen to mark the cutting line and large scissors to cut the Nu Foam cushion inserts, purchased from our local JoAnn Fabrics.

Padded Chair Cover

The photo below shows the pattern for the bar stool seats compared to the seat of one of the other kitchen chairs. I added the extensions to the pattern piece at the back of the seat to fit around the chair back.

Padded Chair Cover

With the cushion in place on the chair, I pinned together a muslin version of the seat cover, adding seam allowances and adjusting the fit of the skirt and back extension cutout as needed. The easiest way to make it all work was to make the back skirt completely removable.

Padded Chair Cover Padded Chair Cover

To make the padded cover, it needed to be assembled kind of like a pillow, with a skirt added along the edges. I wanted the cushion insert to be removable for cleaning, so the bottom part of the 'pillow' was made of two slightly overlapping pieces - a facing piece and a bottom lining.

For stability while sitting on the stool (and hopefully to put less stress on the velcro attachments), I used non-skid fabric for the bottom lining. The top edge of this non-skid piece was hemmed for a clean finish before attaching it to the seat. A teflon foot and some tearaway stabilizer on the bottom made it easier to stitch over the bumpy rubber dots.

Padded Chair Cover

The facing piece was made of home dec fabric. The bottom edge is finished using a 3-thread overlock stitch on the serger before attaching it to the seat.

Padded Chair Cover

To assemble the cover, first the facing piece was sewn to the seat with right sides together at the back edge and extension pieces only.

Padded Chair Cover

The seams were trimmed, corners clipped and then the facing was turned right side out and pressed. Next, the non-skid fabric and facing piece were basted to the seat top (wrong sides together) by stitching around the outer edges. The facing piece overlaps the non-skid bottom lining.

Padded Chair Cover

To prepare the skirt pieces, the front sections were sewn together and raw edges finished with the overlock stitch on the serger. The back skirt piece was prepared the same way.

Padded Chair Cover

The hems were folded and sewn with a blind hem stitch. The back skirt was also hemmed along the top edge.

Padded Chair Cover

The front skirt was sewn to the seat, matching the pieced seams of the skirt to the corners at the front of the seat, then the entire seam was finished with an overlock stitch on the serger.

Padded Chair Cover

Here's a close-up of seams inside the cover.

Padded Chair Cover

The last step was to sew on the velcro and top stitch the remaining side hems in place on the skirt back.

Padded Chair Cover

Here's a view of the back, with the skirt about to be secured to the rest of the cover:

Padded Chair Cover

The kitchen chair covers in part 1 were assembled in a similar fashion, but without the cushion and bottom lining.

Comments

  1. Un trabajo excepcional , a ver si me animo a hacerlo para mis sillas....Saludos.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think these are amazing and just the ideas I need to cover my very nice dining chairs with back similar to your bar stools. I am moving and they are now going to be in the kitchen and with visiting grandchildren and everyday use by us - I need to cover the very nice fabric on my 6 chairs. Thank you for such clear instructions and pictures. I'll let you know how they turn out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tutorial spiegato molto bene, perfetto per le mie sedie. Grazie

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bravoooooo👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

    ReplyDelete
  5. I can’t wait to try your slip cover idea! Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I looked for a while to find a tutorial on how to slip cover dining room chairs with a back similar to your bar stools. This was the best I found and pretty easy to understand and figure out how I am going to do the covers for these chairs. Thankyou for these instructions.

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