DIY: Sew Your Own Furniture Cover And An Idea For Leftover Fabric

Right after we moved one big DIY project I wanted to complete was to make a cover for a chest my grandparents made for me when I was a kid. I love the chest and it holds every scrapbook, picture, and tangible memory from my life so I didn’t want it sitting in the basement. However, I wanted it to match our decor and reboot the style a little bit.

I found this really cool fabric at IKEA and bought several yards of it. I knew I’d have leftover but since it was so cute I figured I’d find a use for it all (and I did, keep reading!).

I started by sketching out a pattern for my fabric:

The skirt represents that fabric that would cover the chest around the width and the top represents the fabric to be used as the connecting point, creating structure and draping. Basically the idea here was to have one very large piece of fabric (the skirt) which would be sewn directly to the top. This was much easier than cutting the skirt into four sections corresponding to the four sections of the chest and sewing them individual on that way. Make sense?

I started from the bottom up on this design, first sewing a straight hem a the very bottom of my fabric.

I then measured and cut the fabric for my skirt pattern. Having a built in hem already helped tremendously because I didn’t need to account for that in my measurement.

The next step was to cut the fabric for the top pattern.

I measured and pinned the other hem of the skirt pattern, and then sewed it straight across. I then pinned my top fabric onto the skirt, starting with one side at a time.

Pinned top to skirt, side one:

As I kept pinning and sewing the pieces of the skirt to the top, I slowly created a cover that draped perfectly over my chest. In other words, I sewed one piece of the square at a time, adjusting at each section, and creating crisp corner edges.

The last part was to sew up the remaining open seam,

cut off the excess fabric underneath each hemline,

trim off all the strings,

and it was DONE! It fits perfectly and drapes like a dream with defined, sharp corners. It really looks professionally sewn.

After the chest cover was complete I got to thinking about what to do with my leftover fabric. I had two naked bulletin boards in the office – why not cover them in the fabric too?

So I measured the bulletin board and created a simple pattern. My pattern was essentially the dimensions of the bulletin board with a 1 inch border of excess for a seam allowance. I used a stapler to adhere the fabric to the board (which you can’t see at all since the fabric is grey though I really need to invest in a staple gun).

John mounted the bulletin board on the wall behind our office door and I promptly covered them with our junk. Junk = all of our Groupons, party invites, stamps, the Patriots schedule, postcard, stickers, etc.

I love that these two items in the office are subtly tied together with such fabulous fabric. And I smile every time I look at them because I know I made them!