Several years ago, I acquired a small swivel chair through Freecycle, which I use for sitting at my computer. In recent months it was definitely beginning to get a little worse for wear until the cushion on the backrest parted company from the rest of the chair in a pretty terminal way. Not wanting to discard what was otherwise still a perfectly serviceable chair, and because I clearly don’t have enough other projects to be working on, I decided to see what I could do to remedy the situation.
It took a little work to get the plastic cover off the back of the chair, but with a pair of pliers and some brute force I managed it without breaking anything.
I used the original fabric cover as a template which I pinned to some upholstery fabric and then cut round it giving myself a couple of centimetres of extra fabric all the way round.
I thought it might be sensible to do a zigzag stitch around the outside edge as I wasn’t sure how much the fabric might fray, and I didn’t want it all unravelling inside the chair after it was all put back together again. I probably should have done it a bit closer to the edge, but since this is only the second time I’ve actually used my sewing machine, I thought that was forgiveable.
I then folded the edge over and pinned it to form a narrow channel all around the outside. I stitched this (twice for extra security!) leaving a small gap at the bottom, and then fed a piece of string all the way round.
Then it was just a case of putting the foam in place and the cover over the top, and pulling the drawstring as tight as possible.
I fired a couple of staples in for good measure (it was stapled originally too) and popped the plastic cover back into place, and voila! tis a smart and comfortable (though somewhat mismatched) chair once more!
Maybe I’ll do the seat to match the backrest too, one day!
Jack of all Crafts 