Before and after!

I'm giving myself two gold stars. I've never done a slipcover before, and here I am making beautiful things happen for the nursery glider. Remember I was wondering which fabric to choose? We ended up picking the fourth one and I am thrilled with it.

My mum (an expert sewer and pattern-maker) gave me some great advice: make a cover first out of an old sheet and use that for the pattern. SO helpful. I wasn't worried about screwing up with the rather spendy fabric, and could sew, unstitch, draw with marker on, and re-sew to my heart's content. There were five cushions to recover, so four unique patterns (the arm cushions are, thank goodness, the same). That took a day.

The REAL cover took about 5 hours - that's me taking it slow. It is not perfect (and don't say "Why not?" like my husband did!). I think I did a pretty good job for my first slipcover ever, working with no pattern! I tried to line up the pattern and also make the most of the fabric.

The arm cushions were the hardest part - the top side is gathered to allow for the curve, and the original cushions have snaps that I was trying to make work by creating holes (with facing) on the slipcovers. That's 16 faced holes, lots of tedious sewing. The snaps are super hard to do up to begin with, and once the cover was on, I couldn't get them done up at all. Then I realized that I'd done the post holes a fraction too small, and because there's a bit of extra fabric there, the snaps won't do up. So rather than fight with it any more, I simply stitched ribbons to the original cushions which come out the holes in the slipcover I made and tie together to hold the arm cushions on. Not ideal but hey, it works!

I even have a little fabric left over, perfect for new throw pillows downstairs and a trim for the laundry basket liner in the nursery!

Here it is.... the grand reveal....

Before

After

Hey, check me out - this was featured over at Pink and Polka Dot!