A step-by-step tutorial on how to make a slipcover for a sofa or couch. 

Did you ever consider how to make a slipcover to restore a beloved piece of furniture in your home? 

Plip plop. Plip plop. Whoosh! Beep, beep. Honk! Squawk!

Not the usual sounds you hear when you’re on your sofa. 

Except if your sofa is sitting outside in the rain, lonely and unprotected at the curb, evicted from its beloved home.

Your home. 

Where it sat comfortably for years, supporting your family through all your daily activities. 

Remember when you vacuumed wayward crumbs and found loose coins in its sturdy corners to feed the parking meter or pay for overdue library books?

While its structure is still firm and intact, your sofa now has a worn look, with tattered arms and cushions. 

One snide comment from your visiting aunt about a local furniture shop she simply loves hits its intended mark. 

And now, the sofa that happily tolerated endless reruns of your children’s favorite movies and buckets of popcorn has become an outcast.

But the story didn’t have to end that way!

SAVE YOUR SOFA FROM THE CURB

Your sofa is still a valuable piece of furniture in your home. 

Instead of discarding it and paying thousands of dollars for a replacement, I can show you how to make a slipcover for it.

I finally finished a slipcover for my couch. The whole process took about a week to complete and it was not as painful as I feared. 

My new cover is a blue canvas – we originally wanted gray but we fell in love with this lively shade of blue. 

Want to learn how to make a sofa slipcover and save your sofa from the dumpster? Let me share the process with you.

And, if you can not remember my old couch, here is a little reminder. Look at those ripped cushions – I do not miss them!

To make a slipcover for a leather couch, I had to be careful because the fabric would shift as I tried to pin things together. I followed this great tutorial by Honeybear Lane on how to make a couch slipcover. 

But let’s show you how I completed my slipcover. 

To start, here are the supplies I used.

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The upholstery chart stated that I would need 14 yards of fabric but I wanted to wash the fabric before making the slipcover, so I added an extra 2 yards for shrinkage. I still have about 2 yards leftover after completing the slipcover.

I also moved my sewing station to the living room to have easier access to my sofa.

Follow my instructions for making the piping for the slipcover and sewing the cushions with a zipper enclosure. Once I reached this point, my couch looked a little better.

The biggest improvement, though, was when I decided to add piping to the top cushions of my couch. I wish I could have removed the cushions like the Honey Bear Lanes tutorial from above,  but my cushion was firmly attached to the couch. Because these cushions were attached to the sofa, it did make it a troublesome piece to sew.

Make sure when you approach the corners on the fabric that you sew 1/2″ away from the edges.

Also, place the RIGHT side of fabric against the couch – you will be pinning everything inside out.

DETERMINE THE SIZE OF THE SLIPCOVER

But let’s not skip ahead because you’re probably wondering how to determine the size of a fabric piece. Unlike the cushions, or if you reupholster a chair, you can use the old fabric pieces as a template (pattern). When you are making a customized slipcover, you have to determine the size of the exact sofa you have. 

There are two different ways to measure the fabric pieces:

1. Use a tape measure to give you an approximation of the size needed for each specific area. Remember, you want it larger than you will need because you can always trim extra fabric.
2. Drape the fabric against the sofa and trace the outline of the piece with a fabric marker. Then, cut out the shape about 2” larger than the outline. 

These fabric pieces (panels) are then ready to sew together.

PUT IT ALL TOGETHER

To connect the panels, pin the fabric together and trace with the fabric marker where you need to sew the pieces together See the image below as an example.

One thing I would do next time to make the slipcover look more professional is to add piping to the arms. Instead, I pinned the fabric together and traced along the arm line.

Here is what my slipcover looks like, inside out, after sewing all the pieces together:

THE FINAL DETAILS

Before adding a hem to the slipcover, you should sew the back of the cover together. You will need to add Velcro to be able to fit the slipcover securely over the couch. 

To do this, stitch from the top of the slipcover to 13-14″ away from the bottom (where your hem will be). For the last 13-14″ baste stitch (just a wider stitch) until you reach the bottom.

I cut two fabric strips at 4″ x 13″ and cut 2 strips of Velcro at 11-1/2″. For each side of the sofa, you will have four in total.

Fold the fabric pieces in half and sew 1/2″ away from the top and bottom edges. Then, trim the corner by the folded edge – this will give the fabric a point after it is turned over.

Now, turn the fabric right side out.

Pin the Velcro 1/4″ away from the folded edge.

Sew the Velcro into place.

Place the Velcro fabric piece 1/2″ down from where you started your baste stitch and pin into place (make sure you are not pinning to the back of the piece of fabric but the side piece).

Then, pin the other side of the Velcro strip directly across (back panel of slipcover).

Next, sew all pieces into place and unpick the basting stitch.

To hem the edges of the slipcover, measure from the floor up and pin into place. Finish by topstitching.

And now, you have learned how to make a complete slipcover! Do not mind the wrinkling fabric because I did not see the point of ironing.

We have really been enjoying our newish couch. I still wish I would have added piping to the arms. And I have found that because my couch is leather underneath, the cover does slide slightly. 

But, overall, a huge improvement from before. 

I plan to add some accent pillows to brighten up the space and our dear sofa will never know how close it was to being tossed to the curb!

Anyone else making a sofa slipcover or want to?

Interested in more home sewing projects? Here are some other posts you might enjoy:

• How to sew curtains
• How to make an envelope pillow