slipcover

Slipcover-- Done! with pillows

Slipcover -- Done!

My couch slipcover is finished, finally! I must admit that despite how large a project this was, one of the most difficult things about it was figuring out when it was finished. I'm still new enough to sewing that most things aren't perfect. Okay, I guess "most things aren't perfect" goes for almost everybody, beginner or not, but I imagine that with more experience more things will be closer to perfect. When I'm using a pattern, the "finished" point is fairly clear-- I'm done when I get to the end of the instructions! When it's clothing, there's also the "alright, I can wear it now" factor. Even if I imagine I might want to make some kind of alteration sometime in the future, clothing is fairly clearly finished when I start wearing it. For the couch, it wasn't so clear. It's been "wearing" the slipcover through the entire process, I've only been taking it off to work on it. I'd put pieces together, drape, pin, take it off, sew, put it back on. And in between working on it, it would be on the couch. Through much of it you wouldn't even have been able to tell clearly that it wasn't done, since the pillows covered up a lot of the not-done parts. My dilemma was the sides of the arms. They're pretty much just draped and hanging down. Towards the beginning, I'd been hoping to give them more of a shape. I'm not sure how much shaping is "expected" on a slipcover. As it is, they're just hanging down to the floor, with a narrow serged rolled hem at the bottom. Since it's between my fabric china cabinet and some shelves, the sides aren't particularly visible or accessible; I don't know if it's always going to be that way. I may, at some point in the future, attempt to add some more shaping to the arms. As it is, however, all of the pieces are sewn together, it's firmly secured around the couch with elastic at the back, the edges all have rolled hems, and there's nothing about it that says "this isn't finished." So, even if sometime in the future I decide that I know how to add better shaping to the sides that would be an alteration of a finished item, rather than the finishing of a UFO. Right now, it's done!
(And besides, I can't try to get poor Piper back off of it for awhile!)