Bench Slipcover

Do you have a piece of furniture you just had to have and now look at it and say to yourself, "why oh why"? Well I do. In fact I have a house full of questionable purchases. I still like most of them but payed way too much and didn't think how they would work with kids. This bench was purchase from RH back in 2005.

It's been in the girls room so Mike and I could have a place to sit. Ususally it's covered in a quilt because the fabric shows stains easily. I finally decided to tackle a slipcover in my quest to conquer my sewing machine.

I started with this amazing fabric from TonicLiving. Let me tell you, it is even more gorgeous in person. This fabric has the most lovely shades of lavender and plum with little hits of dark blue, grass green and greige. Since it was the inspiration for the entire room I decided to order two yards even though it was a little more than I originally planned to spend.

After the fabric was washed and dried a large top piece was cut with piping which was pinned then sewed on. This was only the second time I've made piping and I improved my technique a bit. I didn't sew as closely when making the piping so the stitches would be covered when sewing all the pieces together. I also overlapped the piping fabric following the instructions from this tutorial. I used an old Nate Berkus for Linens N Things sheet (this was his line years ago before Target) for the piping and each corner because the color worked and there wasn't enough floral fabric for these parts.

I then cut and hemmed the four small corner, two short side side and two long side pieces. The top edge was zigzag stitched to prevent fraying.

The four floral pieces were pinned followed by four corner pieces on top of that. This took some adjusting and repinning to make sure the fabric all fell to same length. This shows how the corner looked pinned. The floral side panels are pinned and laying on top of the bench so you are seeing the "wrong side" of the fabric in this picture.

With a little patience all eight panels were stitched on in. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Was it going to lay straight... Was the fabric going to bunch...Thank goodness it worked!

Now the girls room is starting to make more sense design wise. The lavender dresser's color was pulled from this fabric along with the green trim added to the lamp that was made over.

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