How to Make Pottery Barn Style Slipcovers Using a Quilt
Recently I was shopping at my local mall and took a stroll through Pottery Barn where I came across this sofa along with a love seat.
What caught my eye wasn’t the actual Pottery Barn sofa or fabric but the trim detail – more specifically that there was none – no covered cord along the cushion and pillow edges. It looked so modern and fresh. I wanted that look for slipcovers I am customizing for my family room.
I bought inexpensive throw style covers for my sofa and love seat from SureFit Slipcovers. To make the throw covers stay put and look more appealing I am making separate seat and back cushion covers from quilts that I found in the clearance bin.
This ottoman moves all over the room from chair to sofa and it acts as the coffee table when needed.
When I decided to re-do my family room I knew I could not afford new furniture so I swapped out the seating from my basement and family room for a new look. I liked the simple lines of the sofa and love seat, but not the navy blue color. By purchasing the throw style slipcovers I knew I could create a neutral palette to begin making over the room in my desired color scheme and stay within my small budget.
The How-To:
Wash the quilt first for shrinkage. Once dry and shrunk, I draped a quilt on top of the ottoman and pinned each corner as shown.
Notice the grey fur ball who thinks he is helping me.
Then I sewed a seam and trimmed the excess from each corner.
I clipped each corner so the fabric would lay flat when placed on the ottoman.
So the cover looked like this. One single line of stitching on each corner seam.
Then I sewed another seam along each side of the main seam to get the look that I saw on the Pottery Barn sofa. It was Sew easy!!! No cord cover to mess with – no bias cutting fabric to cover the cord, no pins – right up my alley – EASY!
Every seam looks like this now. It resembles a double covered cord, but it is flat.
If you ever made a slipcover you know that you have to keep going back and forth between the piece you are working on and your sewing machine. Every time you need to fit the cover you place it on the piece inside out, fit, pin, and then go back to your machine and sew. Then repeat, repeat, repeat…until you have a completed slipcover. It is not hard, just lots of back and forth.
After I had the top complete I only had pieces left of the quilt. Normally to make the skirt I would want one long piece, but since I could not afford to buy another quilt. I decided make the skirt using 4 pieces. Once I then cut 4 pieces to size – one to add to each side of the cover to act as the skirt. I measured the height and added 2″ for the hem.
Now this is where this tutorial goes south – a cat who shall go nameless decided he needed to help me out GET IN THE WAY the rest of the day!
He thinks he is the King and this ottoman is his throne. I cannot tell you how many times I scooted and pushed him off. Finally I gave up.
You can kind of see the side pieces that I added in the photo below. Sorry I don’t have a more detailed photo.
The top cover is on the ottoman inside out. Each side/skirt piece was measured to fit the side it was going on. I hemmed the sides and bottom of each piece. Once they were ready, I pinned each one to their respective side and then sewed them to the top part of the cover. I added the Pottery Barn seaming to these seams also.
Since I pieced the skirt I needed to cover the ottoman where the skirt sides meet: I sewed a small rectangular piece of quilt to the seam on each corner.
I turned the slipcover right side out and placed it back on the ottoman.
I still have some tweaking to do on the corners. I want to add a button to each corner of the ottoman and a button to replace the bow ties on the throw slipcover on the chair, but I will have to show you how I did that in future post.
The shenanigans I had to put up with…
and FINALLY…
sound asleep ZZZZZZZZZZ. Now I can finish up without any assistance.