one sexy sofa

....now let's take a step back

....uuurghhhh...not so pretty (excluding the children)

I'm so ashamed of our disgusting sofas! Infact they're so bad, my Mum offered to organise a sewing workshop in an effort to encourage me to do something about them. To be fair, the chairs are 10 years old and have copped a lot of action from 2 kids, 2 dogs, a cat and a lot of sunshine. On the positive side, they are still solid and most importantly comfortable.

With no pattern or tutorial to follow, we literally wrapped, folded, cut, stretched, pinned, hand tacked and sewed as we went. It was like a big 3 dimensional jigsaw, with the most complicated part being the 2 corner junctions where the arms meet the back. The first end (shown below) was very experimental which resulted in a little extra binding thanks to my gungho scissor action (yeehaw.... scissor happy).




So what was expected to be a one day session extended to two, and still three of the four cushions were incomplete. The actual fitted skirt took a long time to create but looks fabulous and is very easy to slip on and off for washing. We were sure to pre wash all of the fabric for shrinkage prior to cutting.

The cushions we made in a coordinating fabric. They are also fitted and removable with velcro fastening at the back (so they can be turned over and used on both sides before washing). The fabric is from Ikea (A$10 a metre) and was selected because of it's bright, fun print but also ability to hide soiling as the sofas will be living in the kids playroom.

So not only did I come out of this with a fabulously sexy sofa, but I spent 2 wonderful days with my Mum doing what we both love to do - sew. Oh yeah, and eat yummy biscuits, drink coffee and gab gab gab. I thoroughly recommend the experience!

One sofa down, one more to go. Hey Mum ... I'll put the coffee on :)