How to Make a Sofa Cover? It’s Contented Than You Think.

When you have little kids and pet friends in your house, then your living room sofas may face different challenges like spills, pet bites, and claw attacks. In that case, you must have concerns to protect your sofas from external wear & tear. A sofa cover would be an excellent option to protect your living room sofa. However, you can get a sofa cover in different ways but the best and most economical way is to make (sew) it on your own. Now the question arises of how to make a sofa cover (DIY) at home. Luckily this blog post is all about providing you with the best practical and easy steps to make a (DIY) sofa cover.

1. Accumulate the material first

You might be familiar with the material used to make a sofa cover because most of the things are commonly available and used in occasional and tiny sewing tasks in your house. If you want to make an elastic sofa cover at home, then you just need 3 to 4 inches wide elastic as an additional material.

Fabric of your favorite type (Preferably canvas recommended)
Matching threads
Zipper or Velcro (optional)
Fabric measuring tape
Scissors
Marking pen or chalk that facilitates measurement accuracy
Sewing machine
Common pins
Piping cord not required in every sofa

2. Measure your sofa to make a sofa cover

For a better measuring experience, we recommend you to use a rough butcher paper to draw the pattern from different parts of the sofa. However, mostly you just need the butcher paper to measure the tricky parts (side panel & armrest) of the sofa. The whole measurement process is very crucial in the making of a sofa cover so be careful and don’t rush it in a hurry otherwise, it may destroy your whole sofa cover. There is always a slight variation in the shape of every sofa so you can apply common sense accordingly.

Measure the back side of the backrest

To measure the back side of the backrest, you just need to put the measuring tape on the top of one corner of the backrest and then drop it down in the vertical direction till the end of the sofa feet. You need to repeat the same act on the other corner of the backrest; with this, you can find the exact length of the sofa’s backrest. In the second step, you need to repeat the same act in the horizontal direction for both corners of the backrest, which will help you to find the width of the backrest.

Measure the armrest

Keeping in mind the size of the armrest, separate a piece of butcher paper and drop it down from the top of the armrest. Before taking the measurement you can use the common pins for holding the paper and then mark and cut the armrest pattern. You can get curve-shaped marking paper as a result of the measurement of the upper side of the armrest. Most probably the size of the 2nd armrest of the sofa will be the same, but we recommend you to test this pattern by placing it on the second armrest otherwise measure it separately. The query, “How to make a sofa cover” becomes a little tricky during the measurement of the armrest so be careful.

Measure the seats and front of the backrest

You didn’t need a butcher paper to specifically measure every part of the sofa. If you are measuring the seats of the sofa just hold a marking pen to mark the starting point where the backrest lasts and the ending point where the seating cushion ends and measure this space using the measuring tape. After measuring the seating space, you need to separately measure the seat’s depth and vertical expression of the seats. After measuring the height, you can easily measure the seat’s width to direct the same procedure in the horizontal direction.

However, the best approach to start the measurement of the front of the backrest is to use the same point that you have used to start the measurement of the seat’s depths and end it vertically to the top end of the backrest. To find the width of the backrest you can mark the ending and starting point in the horizontal direction and measure it with the help of measuring tape. Make sure to note down the measurements that you have taken without butcher paper.

Measure the up and over the inner side of the armrest

You can use the butcher paper and a marking pen to measure the up-and-over inner pattern of the armrest. The practical implementation is quite similar to measuring the front side of the armrest.

How to take measurement to make a sofa cover — Image credit : Youtube

3. Arrange the fabric

The measurement of the sofa helps you to avoid the wastage of the material (Sofa fabric). But it is quite impossible to give you the exact measurement. Therefore we will provide you with the best guidance through general measuring figures so that you can easily implement them on your sofa following the same measuring parameters. Let’s say you have 50 inches wide fabric considering the market availability of general measurements of sofa fabric, then you need approximately 17 yards of the same fabric for a 2-seater sofa. As a disclaimer we want to share that 1 yard is approximately equal to 0.91 meters because in normal practices sofa fabric is available in both measurements of yards and meters.

Similarly, if you are wondering how to make a sofa cover for a 3-seater sofa then you need approximately 19 yards of 50 inches wide fabric and likewise, you can implement the same measurement rule for 4-seater and 5-seater sofas. Here we want to give a pro tip that always gives a margin of (1-2 inches) of shrinking effect to sofa fabric while purchasing, but if the fabric will not shrink you can easily cut these extra 1-2 inches. However, if you want to discover how to make sofa covers from sheets, then you don’t need to arrange the new fabric, you can use your favorite sheets and follow the same process to make a sofa cover.

4. Cut the fabric patterns and parts

Before cutting the fabric must wash the whole fabric and carefully iron it to withdraw the shrinking effect from the fabric. The best approach in cutting the fabric is to cut the larger parts like the front and back sides of the backrest. In the second step, you can easily manage the cutting of the small and tricky parts like up and over the inner side of the armrests of the sofa. You can also mark numbers in the sequential order to every part of the sofa, (like number 1 to the front pattern of the armrest & number 2 to the up and over side of the armrest) which helps you to discipline the sewing process. Don’t worry you didn’t require extraordinary sewing skills to sew this sofa cover.

Make sure that you leave some sewing allowance while cutting all parts of the sofa cover specifically the armrest and side panels, it will facilitate you to make (sew) a sofa cover. After measurement cutting is a very crucial step to make a sofa cover pattern.

Cutting of fabric to make a sofa cover — Image credit : Youtube

5. Sew the fabric to make a sofa cover

First, manually assemble the sofa cover with the help of common pins. In this process, you just need to place all the sections or parts of the fabric on the sofa and assemble each part with the help of common pins. This will give you a clear picture of the sofa cover and help you in the sewing process of the sofa cover.

Prepare the piping strips

It depends on the shape of the sofa or couch whether its cover requires piping or not, but as a general rule of thumb piping gives a comprehensive and fine finish to the sofa cover. It is a little tricky but an easy thing to do, and you can easily find the 2-inch wide fabric from the remaining cuttings of the fabric material. First of all place the piping cord on the center of the fabric strips and then length-wise fold the fabric strips from the center and temporarily pin it with the help of common pins by giving a reasonable space to place it on the sewing machine. After that place this strip on the sewing machine foot and sew the piping cord.

Make sure to switch the setting of the machine’s fabric foot to the zipper foot. Carefully remove the common pins after completing the sewing process. However, the preparation of piping strips is the second tricky thing in the making of a sofa cover.

Piping to make a sofa cover — Image credit : Youtube

Sew the Armrest

Separate the armrest parts from the sofa and place these sections on the sewing machine foot to the wrong side up to the machine. In this step, you need to sew the piping cord with the upper side of the armrest at an angle of 45 degrees and the lower portion with the relevant layer of the side panel. In the second step, you need to sew one layer of the up-and-over inner side of the armrest with the relevant layer of seat cover and the other side with the upper layer of side panels of the sofa cover.

Sew the other sections of the body

In this step, you need to sew the back side of the backrest with the front side of the backrest and then the front side of the backrest with the seats of the sofa cover. In the last step, you need to assemble the remaining layers of the side panel with the backrest and check if any tiny part requires a sewing finish. Make sure to iron the seam layers of the sofa cover which enhances the finishing touches of your sofa makeover.

Sewing to make a sofa cover — Image credit : Youtube