Reupholstery question?
Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at
2:25 pm
Ok I’m trying to reupholster a bar stool I have at my house. It’s a simple round pad, but I have a square piece of fabric that I’m going to use to cover it. How would I cut the fabric in a way that it will fit over the round edges of the stool with a minimum number of folds. If you have any advice or know of any links to such patterns please post them. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Tagged with: bar stool • fabric
Filed under: Your Community Center
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The better bar stool should have a seat that is held to the legs/base by screws. Undo the screws. Remove the old upholstery fabric. In good upholstery there are at least 3 layers over the wood: padding, muslim fabric, and the decorative upholstery fabric. If the padding and muslim are in good condition, lay the seat disc over the new upholstery fabric to make sure you have sufficient width. Note how the old fabric was laid out, and duplicate attaching the new fabric in the same manner. You can use tacks or staples, but don’t tack too close to the edge of the fabric. After tacking the first point, stretch the opposite point tight and tack it down. Move 90° and tack again, but be careful to keep the fabric straight; some fabrics will stretch diagonally. Then stretch and tack the fabric across from this. You now have 4 tacks in place. Work back and forth, only doubling fabric in a fold in the last tackings. Replace the reupholstered seat on the base and screw it secure again.
Some stools have upholstered tops over glued down seats. For these I recommend you measure across the top, down the sides and add 3 inches (10"+2"+2"+3"). Cut your fabric in a circle this diameter. Surge or satin stitch the edge of the fabric circle to prevent fraying. Turn finished edge under and stitch closed except for 1 inch, making a pocket. Pin a length of heavy duty elastic near the opening. Pin another safety pin to the end of the elastic and insert it through the opening. Pull the elastic thru the pocket using the safety pin until you come back out the opening. Fit the cover over the existing cushion, pulling the elastic tighter or looser for best fit and pin in place. Remove from stool. Overlap elastic and stitch in place. Remove pins and allow elastic to fall inside pocket. Place over stool seat. I used grosgrain ribbon instead of elastic, and tied the ends around one of the legs into a bow. Hope this helps.
The only way to upholster it without folds is to use two pieces of fabric sewn together. A circle on top and a band for the sides.
The next time you look at a bar stool (and I do suggest that you look at a couple of already-upholstered bar stools before doing your own) take a close look at how the fabric is applied. You will likely see one of two things.
a) you might see that, as the previous respondent pointed out, you can take a circle of fabric and sew a band around it to make a pill-shaped cushion. This will give you no folds at all, but requires you to do some sewing to cover the cushion.
b) you might see that they have simply carefully folded the cloth around the cushion in such a way that the folds aren’t super super predominant. There will be folds, and you will see them, but if they are tight, and are evenly spaced, they won’t be distracting.
At first, simply try pinning the fabric into shape and see what you think. If you can come up with a configuration of folds that you like, then do it a couple more times until you’re sure you can duplicate the folds – and then pull out the staple gun and make it stick.
Good luck!