How to sew a cover for a stool with an elastic band?

Every home most likely has old or overly hard stools. To save money, you can quite simply make covers for such furniture yourself. Then its appearance will instantly transform, and it will become much more comfortable to use.

Features of sewing covers for stools with elastic

Of course, it is much easier to sew a cover using a sewing machine. But for a persistent needlewoman, nothing is impossible, and if you have the proper skills, it is possible to make such products by hand. After all, there is nothing particularly difficult in sewing covers for stools: these are small products, often using a layer of synthetic padding and elastic. It seems to me that this is how you can achieve a tighter fit of the cover to the stool, although sewing this part will require a little more effort.

Selection of materials and tools

For comfortable work we will need:

• outer fabric (it is advisable to choose a stiffer one, leather can be used);
• foam rubber or synthetic winterizer (sold already quilted and in a fabric case);
• threads in the color of the main fabric;
• rubber;
• pins;
• chalk;
• regular marker or felt-tip pen;
• ruler.

Advice! If it happens that you don’t have a special chalk or marker for marking, a piece of soap may do (even better is a thin residue that is unsuitable for washing your hands). With its help, you can transfer the pattern, and after washing there will be no trace left of these lines.

You can also make a pattern from cardboard or thick paper, but it is quite acceptable to simply trace the outline of the seat on the fabric.

Preparation

The material must be washed, dried and thoroughly ironed before sewing. This is necessary so that the fabric immediately shrinks during this treatment, and subsequently, when washing the finished cover some time after use, nothing prevents the product from maintaining its appearance.

Stages of sewing a cover with an elastic band

I find it easier to work with a cardboard pattern. To create it, you need to attach an inverted chair to the sheet and trace the seat with a pencil. Then the pattern is applied to the soft filler and transferred to the material using a regular marker or felt-tip pen.

This pattern is also applied to the upholstery fabric, outlined, but the future cover is cut with a certain allowance: for seams, for the thickness of the padding polyester and for sewing on the elastic. To prevent the filling from bunching up and moving around inside the cover, it should be quilted - sewn on a machine together with the outer fabric.

Advice! There is an excellent foot that is ideal for stitching such a thick layer. It is called walking or upper conveyor. The essence of its work is that it advances the top layer at the same time as the machine moves the fabric below. It is not cheap, but its advantage is that it can help sew complex knitted fabrics.

So sewing a cover with an elastic band can be divided into the following stages:

1. Choice of materials: top and filler.
2. Preparing the pattern and transferring it to the fabric.
3. Cutting and sewing.

Nuances of upholstery of square seats

In order for the cover to fit perfectly on the stool, it is necessary to cut it according to a special pattern. Having taken the measurements and transferred them to the fabric, you need to add 7–8 cm, stepping back from the edge. In this case, it will look like a square that does not have squares with a side of 7–8 cm at the corners (that is, we make allowances 7–8 cm wide and length equal to the side of the square).

1. Cut out the resulting blank.
2. Cut out the filler along the borders of the pattern.
3. Center the filling relative to the top fabric.
4. For convenience, it is advisable to sweep the filling with the fabric along the perimeter and from corner to corner, cross to cross, from the inside out.
5. Turning the work over, we transfer the contours of the filler onto the fabric from above. It is convenient to use a ruler for this.
6. We mark the lines along which we will quilt the cover: the first of them will connect two opposite corners, the rest, with an equal indentation of 3–5 cm, will be parallel to it.
7. We quilt with a regular straight stitch along the previously drawn lines.

Important! There is also a special foot for straight stitching. It differs from the universal one in its slightly smaller size and the presence of a round hole for the needle, which prevents the fabric from being pulled into it (in the universal one it is an oval hole for the entire possible stitch width). This foot also has a wide base, which presses the fabric tightly and does not allow it to move to the sides - the stitching is more even.

Next, remove the basting thread and sew a line along the contour of the filler. Sew the corners together. We fold the edge, stitching very close to the left hem, leaving an unstitched space to insert the elastic there.Sew the edges of the elastic, you can sew up the hole. The case is ready!

Advice! Use a safety pin to pin it to one end of the elastic and pull it through the hem.

How to sheathe round ones correctly

For such seats, I prefer to use foam rubber as a filler. To cut out a suitable shape from it, it is very convenient to use a regular stationery knife.

1. Place the stool with its seat on the foam rubber, trace it around the perimeter with a marker, and cut out the resulting circle.
2. We place the fabric face down, on top of the stool, and draw chalk around the perimeter. From the resulting circle we set aside a distance equal to the width of the filler + about 4 cm for seams and hems.
3. We cut out the lower part of the cover using the same pattern, only without taking into account the thickness of the foam rubber - you will get a smaller circle only with seam allowances.
4. We apply the filler to the larger one, sew the edges of both parts together, folding the edges of the fabric to fit the filler.
5. We apply the second piece from below, using a hidden seam we connect the top and bottom of the product, leaving room for an elastic band.
6. We make a hem, stitching on a machine, and insert an elastic band.

Some tips and interesting ideas

It is not necessary to specifically buy fabric for such a cover. You can use the remnants of another or combine different fabrics using the technique patchwork. An interesting solution is to decorate the covers with buttons, appliqués, embroidery, sequins, or make them from individual small pillows using the bonbon technique. You can run a satin ribbon along the edge of the product, gathering it to form waves. It is better not to even sew decorative elements, but to glue them to the cover using special fabric glue. You can also knit fabric; it looks especially interesting for a round seat when using knitted or other thick yarn.

The option of making a cover for a stool yourself is very advantageous. This will save money and give your furniture a cleaner look. The opportunity to update the interior with the help of changing covers is quite attractive, considering that making them yourself is not at all difficult.