A Tale of Two Footstools

Footstool #1 before

     A client brought me two footstools they had bought.  They wanted them to be slipcovered to match their decor.  No problem I thought, but when they brought them by, one actually opened up and they wanted to preserve that feature.

Top for footstool #1

     The first one was pretty straight forward.  I measured the top and cut it out.  Then I sewed on covered cord.

Skirt for footstool #1

     For the skirt, I again measured and then cut pieces to sew together to make the skirt.  I needed to be sure to hide the seams in the pleats in the corners.  I added lining and sewed it into a big circle.  I serged the top edge to keep the raw edges together and then pinned it to the top and sewed all around.

Footstool #1 finished

     I then just slipped it over the footstool and I was done.  Now on the the other one.

Footstool #2 before

Footstool #2 before

     I couldn't make a slipcover for this one as they wanted to be able to open it up.  I took it part and started to get to work.

Lining covered foam getting fabric stapled in place

All stapled to the particle board

     I took off the old cover because we didn't really want the cording to be seen under the new fabric.  I covered the foam with some lining and then stapled the fabric over the board that was not seen.  Put the nicer wood grain looking board back over it and it all looked fine.

Oh No!  You can see the edge of the board

  Oh no, you could see the edge of that board.  That did not look good at all.  I consulted with my clients as to our options.  We chose to place the fabric over both boards and then apply gimp to cover the raw edges.

Top recovered with gimp in place

Top recovered with gimp in place detail

     Okay, part one solved.  Now for the bottom part.  The footstool was not square and it also had flared legs.  I decided the best option would be to make the 'skirt' in eight pieces.  I made four corner flaps and stapled them in place.

Starting on the corner flaps

Corner flaps in place, note the line for placement

Corner flaps in place

     To be sure everything lined up properly I drew a line on the inside that would be the mounting line (client was fine with the gold vinyl showing on the inside).  The other skirt pieces were cut in a trapezoid shape so that they could flare out with the legs.

One side flap sewn with lining

Understitching to keep the lining in place

     I lined the pieces and then to be sure the lining didn't peek out to the outside, I did an understitch to keep it in place.

Inside all pretty with gimp covering the raw edges

  I then again covered the raw edges with the gimp and reassembled the footstool.

Footstool #2 finished

  I think they turned out okay and the clients were happy.

Finished footstools