parsons chair slipcover: how-to.

It's taken me a little time to get this post up (I've been a little busy lately but I'll talk about that another time)... Here is the how-to on the slipcovers I made a couple weeks ago... WARNING- lots and lots of pictures!
First I bought a large dropcloth canvas from Lowes ( I needed 2 to do both chairs but I have a ton left over for something else also)... wash and dry it so it pre-shrinks and you can wash it later on without worrying if it will still fint your chair afterwards.
Lay it out flat and place the chair on top...
Draw a line outling the chair (with some give room for seam allowance)... and cut it out...
Do this for both your front and back (of course you can always cut one long piece instead of 2 but I wasn't thinking)...
Sew the front and back together and iron the seam... place on chair wrong side out...
Cut a piece for the seat portion and leave enough for seam allowance this time too...
Using a needle and some red thread I loosely sewed the seam where the front back and seat meet and needed to be sewn (this made it so I didn't have to use pins and risk stabbing my self as I sewed it...
Sew it and iron the seam flat...

Try it on the chair and make sure it fits right...
Cut out a piece for the sides of your back...
Your chair should look like this...(you could always pink the front and back together and sew that instead of adding another piece of fabric here like I did, it would probably be faster and then you would sew the corner to make a flat seam perpindicular to the seam of where you sewed the sides up...does that make sense?)...
Again using some red thread and a needle I hand sewed the side piece to the main body of the slipcover...This was a bit tricky to get it right and mine didn't turn out perfect but I can live with it...
Here you can see the thread better...
Try it on the right side out to make sure it fits right, mine is snug but not too snug that it it hard to get on and off...
Do the same to the other side...
For the skirt you will have to do some math... first measure the back, front and sides of your chair. My front and back were the same and my sides were a few inches longer... Also measure how long you want your skirt to hang. I measured from the floor to about half way up the side of the seat...Lay out the fabric again and cut the right length (I measured 15inches in height and 16 in width so I cut a piece to be 17 in height (the bottom was already pre-hemmed) and 25-26in width)... iron a seam on one side as well as the top and bottom to your desired finished measurements... Now place your fabric ruler (I can't think of the correct name at the moment) width ways from the end of your finished side towards the unfinished side so you see where your side needs to eventually finish...
For a box pleat mark the middle of your desired finished width...
Pinch some fabric left of the mark to fold over to the other side of the mark to make a pleat, the mark should still be in the same spot (I'm sure there are more appropriate ways to describe this but I'm tired and can't think of them right now)... iron it flat.

Do the same to the otherside but fold the opposite direction as to make a mirror image of the first...

Iron it flat again as well as the rest of the pleat all the way down (I made mine flare out a little so it is not completely leveledly (yep I'm making up words too) straight...
See...
Now you have to finish the seam on the other side... Fodl it a couple of times to the correct measurement and then iron flat...

Now you can sew all of the seams and pleat...
Now put the slipcover on the chair inside out and fold up the bottom about half way or a little more...
And pin the skirt piece you just made wrong side out onto the folded up section of the cover (be careful not to pin all the way through and only the piece of the slipcover that is folded up)...
Take the entire thing off and sew it up... Do this for all 4 sides... If you're good at math you can make on continuous piece and wrap it around instead of having 4 individual pieces like I have ( I like have each side sort of flare out on it's own and it makes it not so tight around the legs as opposed to one long piece that might make it a little tight around...
I forgot to mention, before you attach the skirt pieces put the slipcover on inside out and pinch the corners of the front of the seat together and make a seam to it fits the chair...
And there it is...
Not too hard, except for the sides gave me some trouble and on the second chair I had to redo on of the sides a couple of times because I couldn't for some reason get it right... Also the skirt wasn't supposed to drag on the floor so much but I think it's because I didnt' sew it up far enough on the cover so be sure to take not of that if you don't want it to drag like mine, I kind of like it now and think it looks like a pretty flowy dress...
I still plan on putting our monogram on the back of each probably with an iron on transfer that can go through the printer so I can custom make my own... If you have any tips about this sort of project please let me know! I would love to learn more about upholstering and eventually try something with piping (this time I didn't have the patience for it and just wanted it done already!), or if have more accurate terms for my rambling up there please let me know!

~Megan

{check out my side bar to see what parties I'm linking to}