How not to re-cover a vintage armchair

This is the final result of a project that began about two years ago when my kind Aunt gave me a lovely, comfortable old vintage armchair (see original upholstery below). The original colour was so vibrant and fresh, but we don't really have a lot of velvety materials in our living room, so I planned to tone it down and blend it in a bit from the moment that it crossed the threshold into our little flat, rather than having such a bold centrepiece armchair.

 

With no previous experience of re-upholstery I googled, searched, asked friends and family, and watched numerous youtube videos to work out how I should begin the project, while the poor green armchair hid under various interchangeable blankets and throws. When I felt I had some understanding of what a vast undertaking it was and the lack of specific tools I had, I decided to just go with the flow and create a sort of throw-come-cover that would have more of a relaxed appearance than proper re-upholstery would have.

I measured the surfaces of the armchair to try and work out the total amount of material I would need to cover it, and when that proved far too numerate and difficult I simply covered as much of it as I could with make-do newspaper templates, roughly worked out how much material I would need, and visited Fabrics Galore down the road for a soft-toned and neutral fabric.

 

I found a nice, reasonably priced, stone striped material, thick enough to withstand begin sat, bounced, and occasionally slept on, and proceeded to use the newspaper templates to cut sections of fabric to cover the chair.

In order to prevent any rips or tears in the fabric, I realised I needed to cover the top of the seat seperately to the seat cushion so that the material didn't move or get stretched when the chair was sat on.

With something resembling an armchair cover skeleton, I began hemming and pinning it into something more permanent and structured.

I covered the seat cushion in the fabric, positioning the seams along the edges of the cushion and leaving a gap for a zip to be inserted in case of washing emergencies if something were to be spilled (most likely by me) on it.

I lightly tacked the cover together by hand using a brightly coloured thread, then used the sewing machine to go over all the seams, and then cut away all the tacking thread.

This is a slightly cheating blog post due to the fact that I have tacked the rest of the armchair cover together by hand, but haven't yet finished sewing it together with the sewing machine. But as you can see below, it has started to resemble a completely new armchair, one that fits with the rest of the living room and only cost me the length of the material (about £15) and time (roughly 9 months)...