Winging it: A White Slipcover With a Twist

I finished my thrift store wing chair slipcover!

I can't tell you what a feeling of accomplishment this is. I have read books and blogs

on how to make a slipcover for a wing chair but just never started.  It's pretty scary

but once I started it went pretty quickly.

I started with a pretty ugly thrift store chair.  Originally I was going to try my hand

at upholstery but quickly changed my mind and opted to try a slipcover, instead.

When you have four cats who love to lounge on anything upholstered it makes more sense

to slip instead of permanent upholstery.  The chair was poorly recovered in the pink/green floral which my husband quickly removed.

Since the fabric was dark I covered it in cheap muslin so it wouldn't

show through the slipcover.

With a staple air gun and two people working, this was a quick job.

Already the chair looks better.

I traveled to Singapore last month and was lucky to find some great, cheap fabrics there. This is a 60" wide white cotton with a linen texture to it.  It was $4.10 a meter!  Couldn't go wrong with this!  I started making my slipcover by draping the fabric over the chair, pinning and cutting.  Here you see the fold in the back which

will be the button/velcro opening.

Here is the back piece pinned to front pieces. 

more fitting and pinning pieces.

  After pinning most of the pieces I added the piping into the seams then basted them together with embroidery cotton. It really held the pieces together more securely than pins and gave me a good sewing guide.

more basting

  

  basted gathers at the arm. 

 

I sewed the main pieces together and made a muslin cushion cover

to hold the feathers I had to add to it.

I then made a made a ruffle and more piping to edge it with.

For the back I made burlap piping and burlap

covered buttons to match. 

Actually, I tried to make burlap covered

buttons but they were too flimsy and it didn't work. I went to

my local upholsterer who made them for me for 50 cents apiece. Can't beat that!

The do-it-yourself buttons were $2.79 for THREE and they just collapsed when I 

tried to cover them in burlap.

I couldn't be happier with how this turned out and how much I learned doing it.

My new Burlap "Paris" Pillow that I made looks pretty good on it!

  

Oliver can't wait to get on it!  It's his favorite chair.

Care to join me for tea?