Full Tutorial: How to make a chair cover
You want to make a protection for your chair? You don’t know which fabric to choose to cover it.
You want a helping hand?
We are passionate about protecting your furniture and know exactly how to help you. In this comprehensive guide, you’ll discover:
- What material to have and what fabric to choose,
- Measure your chair and make a pattern,
- Making the cover,
- How to make a chair cover will.
From now on, there will be no secrets for you.
You will know exactly how to make and protect your bar chair, your bar stool, your xl chair, your wedding chair with this complete guide.
Table of Contents
Making your own chair covers is possible with the right material!
Level : Beginner
Duration : 1h to 1h30
- Scissors
- Ruler or measuring tape
- Pencil or fabric marker
- Pins
- Cutter
- Sewing machine
- Upholstery stapler or (alternatively) a fabric stapler
- Pattern ruler or otherwise a parrot (if you have rounded corners on your chair)
- A sewing pattern
What fabric to cover chairs with?
If this is your first time making a chair cover, we recommend a simple fabric with no pattern.
How many yards of fabric do I need for my chair cover?
On average, you need 1.5 meters of fabric to make your chair cover.
Polyester: the anti-stain fabric for chairs.
Resistant, it will prevent dirt from penetrating the fabric.
It is opaque, so you won’t see anything through the chair.
The plastic material is also water repellent. A water-repellent fabric is characterized by being waterproof to a certain degree.
It resists wrinkles and reduces fading.
If you have a pet, we highly recommend polyester for its waterproofing to protect you from any possible accidents.
Cotton: A classic for your dining room seat
This natural fiber offers good resistance to everyday wear and tear, fading and pilling.
Unfortunately, it is less resistant to dirt, wrinkles and fire. The durability of the fiber depends on the weave and finish.
Velvet: luxury in your living room
Perfect for updating your chair! The fabric will give your furniture a luxurious and distinguished look.
With its short, straight and tight pile on one side, your chair will be perfectly soft to the touch thanks to this exceptional material.
Dress up your chair back with linen:
Linen is a particular fabric that is best suited for more formal, adult-only living rooms, as it gets dirty and wrinkled very quickly. It is a material that has little resistance to wear and tear, but does not produce any pilling and fades very little over time. Linen should be professionally cleaned to prevent shrinkage.
Silk:
Silk like linen is a delicate fabric that is mainly suitable for adult-only areas and should also be professionally cleaned.
For a custom chair cover, you need to take these dimensions!
First, every chair is unique with these specific dimensions.
Then you need to measure all the dimensions of the seat and back of your chair.
- A) Seat depth
- B) Height of the backrest
- C) Width of the front of the seat
- D) Width of the back of the seat
- E) Backrest width
What are the dimensions of a chair?
The average seat height of a chair is 43 to 46 centimeters and the average width varies from 46 centimeters to 59cm.
As a precautionary measure:
/!\ Take care to see if the seat is the same width in the front as it is in the back. In other words compared to the diagram, if D=C or on the contrary if D is different from C. /!\ add 3cm at each end of the seams.
/Add 5cm at each end of the hems, namely at the bottom of the seat.
With these dimensions, you can now make your pattern!
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Chair Cover Pattern
You are of course free to put any size you like for the sides and front of the chair seat.
Please transfer your dimensions to the fabric.
Draw your dimensions in life size on the chosen fabric.
/!\ As a precautionary measure:
/!\ When reproducing the contours, we recommend that you turn your fabric inside out, to avoid any soiling.
/Take a pencil thin enough to not distort the measurements with large lines when you cut your fabric.
Be careful if you choose a velvet fabric:
You want the fabric to be soft from top to bottom. If a line is drawn when stroking from the top to the bottom, you’re going against the grain, which will make your thing protection unattractive. If you pass your hand over these fabrics and the hairs lie down, without leaving a trace, then you need to lay the pattern pieces in that direction.
How to sew a chair cover
Feel free to do your fittings on the chair in question as you assemble.
- Sew the chair seat and the fabric ribbon around it
In relation to the diagram: Assemble squares 1 and 2, overlapping parts a, b and c.
- Sew the front and back of the chair cover.
Compared to the diagram: Assemble squares 3 and 4
Protecting your chair without any difficulty
With all this information, you are now an expert in making a cover for your chair.
As you can see, protecting your chair is important. It will allow you to avoid damaging your current chair and to avoid buying another one, which can be hard on your wallet as well as on our planet!
You can’t make a protective cover for your chair?
Don’t panic, you can easily get one on our site.
We offer a wide variety of colors for almost every chair.
