Making Outdoor Patio Furniture Covers
You may not realize it, but it is probably a lot easier that you thought to make your own outdoor patio furniture covers. If you are the crafty type, there are a few advantages to making your own – 1) a custom fit cover can be quite a bit cheaper, 2) you can choose whatever color and pattern you would like so you have a completely individual set for your backyard.
It is important that your patio furniture be protected from the elements. The amount of protection your furniture will need is dependent upon where you live. Those people that live in tropical areas will want to protection their furniture from the blazing sun or salt spray every chance they get. The tropical sun will remove an entire layer of varnish in less than 6 months. Unless you don’t mind sanding and re-varnishing you best acquire some covers for your patio furniture.
Step one to designing and making furniture covers for your patio set is choosing your material. This is probably the most important step, since this is where most of the cost is factored in, and it will also determine the longevity of the covers that you end up with. You might not want to choose the cheapest available material, since non sun-resistant and flimsy material will be broken down by the sun and wind sooner than you might expect. Look into finding materials with special weather resistant qualities, such as SunBrella ?, and your covers will protect your furniture for a lot longer.
Now you are ready to design the shape of your patio covers, and take measurements to cut your material and assemble it. When creating custom designed covers, you must think in terms of the volume that your furniture occupies. Most pieces can be simplified into very basic shapes, such as rectangles, cubes and tubes. Covering a table will require you to create a simple box, cutting the top and side cut a few inches larger than the table measurement to allow for seams and a little extra ‘wiggle-room’. You will also want to create a slight widening taper towards the bottom so the cover slides easily over the table without getting stuck halfway down.
Creating custom covers for your chairs will require a little extra measuring and constructing. Your options for creating chair covers will be to create either a custom shaped cover for each chair style, or to create a generic bag size which will cover a variety of chairs. To create a bag style cover, it is as simple as cutting a rectangle of material the same width as your chair height, and as long as the measurement around the circumference of your chair, with a few inches extra for seams and breathing room. Sew this into a tube. Then cut a circle with a circumference the same as the length of the side material (minus the seam width), and then stitch them together. Another hem at the bottom will allow a drawstring to be added if your covers need to be secured to the chairs.
I generally free hand my patterns. However, if you want some more guidance then there are plenty of patterns to choose from at your local fabric store. Making your own patio furniture covers is fun and easy.
