Sofa and Loveseat - After

So, this ended up being a HUGE endeavor for me. The love seat alone is about 72" long. The sofa is 94" long! Both pieces are 42" deep. Considering I'd never done any sort of upholstering project before, I certainly had my work cut out for me. In fact, in hind sight I don't know what I was thinking: I'd always joked that I couldn't sew a pillow case to save my life. Not only did this project create a gigantic learning curve for me, it certainly boosted my confidence with textile manipulations in general (which I'll be posting more samples of as I have time to photograph them...).

Anyway. Being on an extremely tight budget and realizing I was going to have to purchase, from my point of view, enough fabric to wrap my up my house, I went REALLY cheap. I decided I'd make the slip covers in simple canvas. More specifically, I paid $7 each for 3 9' x 12' canvas painter's throws from the local hardware shop (they were on sale). I cut them down to workable widths and, voila, I had my foundation fabric. I used a handy little book I'd purchased at the local craft shop for a quick How-To on slip covers, and the rest was a lot of pain-staking measuring, trimming, pinning and sewing.... miles and miles of sewing.

I realized the pillows would be too bland if I made all of them out of canvas. So, I pulled out the old hand-made curtains and upholstering projects my mother-in-law had given me (there she is again!). The fabrics are from the 70's and very early 80's, so they had the colors and prints that I have come to really adore. Mix that with a few bargains I found at the local fabric shop, and you have the final product. It looks a little bohemian... but I guess that's why I like it. :)