Home dec sewing is boring – there’s no two ways about it. To keep you from falling asleep while reading this, Bosco has helpfully decided to sprawl himself all over said slipcover to act as a diversion from the tedium!
James bought this purple and grey leafy brocade/damask fabric in Paris at Coupon St Pierre last weekend. The coupon fabric shops are a bit different from the usual “there’s a bolt I want you to cut this much of it” fabric stores – here instead, you rummage through piles and piles of pre-cut fabric at set prices, then take what you want to the till. You’re forced to get the full length, but at greatly reduced prices. Anyway, James was after some loud brocade for the interior of a fantasy jacket he’s got brewing for me (which I’ll be telling you more about soon) and bought this only to come across even better fabric later on.
So this lovely, shimmery brocade was left without a use.
Meanwhile, our faux-leather sofa was entirely covered in blankets to try and stop the cat from scratching off what little life was remaining in it (Bosco has the world’s shortest cat memory, and the Liquid Justice squirt bottle hasn’t stopped the problem). So James had the brilliant idea that I should turn it into a slipcover for the sofa!
Lucky for me, there was just enough fabric in the 3m to cover our 2m sofa, and the sofa’s an easy enough shape so working out a pattern wasn’t too bad:
I’d planned to have the back of the slipcover in muslin, with a zipper running down one side of the upright edge, but as it turned out, it stays on just fine with only 10cm or so over the back at the top, and by this point the cat was jumping on it every time my back was turned (seriously – I was checking the fit on one side, and he plopped down on the pile of fabric in the middle of the sofa!).
It may be incredibly boring to sew, but it does look a whole lot nicer in the saloon than either a mess of mismatched blankets or a shredded pleather sofa! It even kinda matches the curtains if you squint…
It was just a bonus that the cat adores this fabric, too! Not bad for €20 and an hour of work!
PS: I did get some more interesting sewing done this weekend, too, which you’ll see later this week!