Couch Update

Baby Hans with the Arm Rest in Progress

Pinned Corner Piece

My mother so graciously volunteered some of her prized Mothers' Day time to help me with our ongoing couch project. It was short, but productive and, as always, a great time to chat during her last few days on the Mainland. We shaped the second cover for the smaller seat cushion. As with the larger seat cushion, we needed to shape the upholstery fabric around a notch in the cushion. It worked best for us to cut a diagonal line and add a triangular piece to fill in the corner that conveniently hides underneath the cushion. That will keep the fabric from bunching too much around the notch and look better from the top. My task this week is to sew it where we pinned the fabric. 

After tackling the seat cushions, the other main hurdle that remained was the oddly-shaped arm rests. "This is not your conventional sewing project... not by the book, per se," Mom reminded me. "Next time I'll teach you to sew from a pattern." Well, I'm glad we can figure these not-so-normal projects out anyway! We flung our cut piece of fabric over the first arm rest and decided to try successive folds. And it worked on the first run! Mom showed me how to stich the gathers where they come together to hold all of them in place. Then, she taught me to do running stitches by hand to keep each pleat folded nicely until it hits the sewing machine. We did the same for the other arm rest, but folded it in the opposite direction. 

The Arm Rests with Running Stitches

It looks like we covered the most difficult parts of this homemade couch cover. Phew. That means I can probably do the final touches on my own if we don't finish before my mom leaves (in less then 2 weeks!). I couldn't have done it without her! Thanks, Mom, for letting me glean from your sewing knowledge for this unconventional project! 

To Do: 

1. Finish sewing the seat cushion pieces

2. Order sheet clips for underneath the seat cushions 

3. Sew over running stitches on arm rests

4. Start working on the bottom panels

5. Finish all the pillow covers (2 down, 6 to go)

Couch Makeover

With the help of my mom, I am endeavoring to makeover our couch. Our friends Hannah and Steven gave us this couch, which was a hand-me-down to them, when they no longer needed it for their home. It happened to fit perfectly in our space and is still really comfy. It would be a lot easier to just get a new couch, but Dryw and I like it so much, especially how much seating it provides, that I decided to make my own cover for it.

Luckily, my mom knows how to sew and with our two creative minds put together we can problem solve this old couch into an custom piece. We started out a couple months ago by measuring all the different parts and figuring out how much fabric we need to get the job done. Once we got to Joann’s Fabric for the shopping phase, we realized that upholstery fabric can treat your budget like a runaway train! So we scoured the clearance and sale racks. We couldn’t find anything in our price range that would cover the entire couch, so we got creative. We found two awesome pieces

My First Pillow Cover

of fabric that would almost get the job done.... but not quite. After many pages of arithmetic, we discovered that we would need just one more piece of fabric to cover half of the eight back pillows. Joann’s didn’t have anything that we fell in love with as a third fabric but we got a tip from one of their employees: Triad Fabrics! We found ourselves in a warehouse full of bulk fabric. Everything you can imagine!

We finally found the threesome that will soon be the Owens couch: an off-white textured fabric, a gold-tan piece and a brown and golden-yellow paisley pattern. The trick was picking cost-effective fabrics that would coordinate with and not take away from our Tree of Life painting by Klimt, my birthday gift from Dryw. I am so excited for how this will turn out!

Our Couch As-Is

Like I noted, this was a couple months ago. Now my mom is moving to Hawaii in only about two weeks, so the clock is ticking. Just a couple weeks ago, she taught me the basics of the sewing machine, kindly lent to us by Melanie. I was able to make my first pillow cover (after two tries) but the difficult pieces remain! I’m hoping we get this done before she goes because I’m not as confident in my innovation alone- we work so well as a team.

Here goes nothing! Less than 18 days till Mom is off to the islands. Let’s see what we can get done!