Our house is what you call a work in progress. And that’s one of the reasons why the furniture in it only has our second priority. And why it’s a bit of a melting pot of everything. You should know, I’m a bit of a horder. Whenever somebody asks me whether I can do something with their old table, couches, beds or whatever, I always say yes. My motto? I can always bring the stuff to the recycling park myself.
And that’s how we got our sofa. Some years ago, when we still thought we would be able to renovate the whole house in just a couple of months, I enrolled for a course of drywall-placing aimed at women. That’s how, one night, I found myself in some stranger’s house, helping to get the drywall up.
That stranger had two sofa’s that she wanted to get rid of. And guess what, they looked pretty decent. So the horder in me screamed yes, and one day later I had mobilized my father-in-law to help me pick them up. Yes, free discarded stuff always gets me to act very fast.
Look how cosy, with that building site lamp and unfinished walls! (This picture was taken 3 years ago, the house looks a bit better already).
Now, 3 years later, we still use these sofas. But they are getting pretty worn out in some places. So worn, that I don’t really want to share any pictures on that. So I came up with the great idea to make new covers myself. At the time, I had read Nele‘s post, and asked her how she did it. I got out the newspapers, and started pinning and drawing.
I bought yards and yards of fabric from Tissage de Kalken, during one of their sales. Since the cushions are just plain square pillows, I used Oon’s tutorial for pillows with bias, and started going.
The idea: One sofa in blue with red pillows, the other one in red with blue pillows. And loads of bias in between.
This is a very slow project (partly due to fear). I haven’t gotten any further yet than just these pillows. And yards and yards of bias. Not my best decision, to make my own bias, since this fabric is thicker than your average cotton fabric.
My goal: get those pillows finished first. And then think hard and long about how to tackle the sofa:
- Do I sew a complete cover, bottom included, with zippers to easily attach/remove it?
- Do I leave the bottom for what it is, and do I just attach the cover around its legs with elastics?
- What fabric should I use for the bottom of the cushions? Now it consists of some synthetic black material, but where can I find that? Or would it be better to choose for antislip fabric with small buttons? And where can I find that?
Should you have an answer to any of these questions, please let me know. Because if I continue at this speed, my first pillow covers will be completely worn again by the time I finish the whole thing.