How to Make a Patchwork Seat Cover – Part Two

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It’s Friday, so we’re getting crafty!

How to Make a Patchwork Seat Cover – The Result & Full Instructions

See Part One of this project by clicking right here!

Whaddya think? This project turned out well, no? This thrifted piano stool went from dark & dirty to bright and fresh. Using a sample pot of paint, a pot of undercoat, some squares of fabric and, it has to be said, some time set aside to do it all. It was done in stages in amongst all the other things there are to do in life and took, in all, about three weeks to complete. If you’re thinking of having a go at something like this don’t give yourself a time limit. Work steadily, picking it up when you can and have the inclination to. If this feels like a pressure or another ‘job’ it won’t be relaxing or fun and the creativity will seep away like water through muslin. No fun in that!

My stool sits proud in the entrance hall at the moment. We don’t have a piano so a piano stool has to find another way of being useful. Being pretty is useful enough to me.

With roses picked from the new garden and thanks given to the marvellous, thoughtful person who tended the garden before we arrived I was very pleased to have this project completed. If a little sad to be letting it go.

Hmmmmmmm, what can I work on next?

Full instructions below. I’m not a seamstress or a quilter but if I want to make something I find a way. While these instructions may not be technically correct according to some, they work and I’ve never liked too many rules in creativity anyway.

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I found an old piano stool in a thrift shop for five English pounds. I liked the blue seat cover so kept a similar shade of blue within the patchwork cover I chose to make.

The wooden base of the stool was rubbed down using a medium course sandpaper and then given three layers of wood undercoat as the wood was fairly dark. It was then painted with two coats of Wimborne White by Farrow & Ball.

Using five different fabric designs, all originally in fat quarters, I cut out three inch squares and placed them on to the seat one at a time. Eventually a picture was built up in front of me that illustrated how the finished seat would look. I found that I had heaps of fabric left over from buying this amount so the investment was worth it as I could then go on to make some other bits and pieces, most notably some of the dried herb bags from this post.

*note that I only went to the edge of the seat and did not cut out the squares that would go under the seat to be pinned in to place. That bit comes later.*

I used a small, tight stitch on my machine as I knew that the cover would be pulled tight across the existing seat. I sewed the ends of the squares together, creating long strips of squares. I then pinned a long strip to another long strip and sewed the strips together length ways. Doing this until all of the long strips were sewn together creating the main part of the seat cover.

Here it is, sans enough squares to pull over the edges of the seat, but taking shape.

Having laid what I had completed of the cover on to the seat it was very easy to count how many more squares were needed to cover the sides of the seat and go underneath the existing seat to be pinned in to place. But when you’re counting out the final pieces needed don’t, WHATEVER YOU DO, forget to take into account hemming the entire edge of the cushion. I used a double hem that was only half an inch in it’s entirety but I still needed to remember this.

Only one more row on each side of the cover was needed so once again I sewed the squares together, pinned the long strip to the main body of the cushion and sewed it all up.

I then hemmed the whole piece of patchwork as it would be impossible to look neat on the underside with frayed edges.

I began to attach the cover to the piano stool, over the top of the original cover for extra padding & comfort and it didn’t show through the new one. I started at the ends, pulling it taught but keeping it even. I had help with this bit so wait until there is one other person free to help you for five minutes. It’s worth getting this bit right as the whole look of the cover can be changed by having it all baggy and loose. Not good!

So, I fixed the ends in place and then the two sides. This left all four corners sticking out as you can see from the picture above.

To remedy that I folded them in to each other neatly and fixed them in place.

Now, you’ll see that this cover has been fixed in to place using staples. I tried upholstery pins & nails first of all as they look much better than staples but because of the wood that the stool is made from it began to split. Stapling it in place is by far the easiest and most unobtrusive way of upholstering the seat but of course it’s the ugliest. If I get around to it I may stick some ric-rack or a trim in place on the underside of the seat to hide the joins.

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But for now I’m happy.

Please email me if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer. I hope I have explained how to do this in the simplest of fashions and I very much hope you give something like this a go having seen me do it. Be brave, it can go slightly awry but nothing is ever WRONG!

Have a wonderful weekend one and all. Here in the Southern/South Western part of England it’s going to be glorious and I can see us being in the garden for the duration.

I’ll see you back here on Monday when I’ll show you my latest love and the best site in the world on a blowy day.

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