How to measure the skirt for a slipcover

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Once the main part of the slipcover for a chair or sofa is finished the skirt is the final piece.

There are a few things to consider when attaching the skirt

  • Do you want cording to separate the skirt from the rest of the chair? If everything else has cording I would recommend continuing this look. If not you can opt to attach the skirt and top stitch down for a finished look. For more info on top stitching check out this article.
  • How long do you want the skirt? Make it proportional to the rest of the piece. I find the most common length is between 10 & 12 inches.
  • Or if the piece has nice wooden legs perhaps you would like a half skirt, leaving the bottom portion of the legs to show. For this type of skirt I usually make them 5-7″ long. My recent post on the anitique chair slipcover shows an ideal half skirt.
free intro to slipcovers guide

Slipcovers can be a beautiful way to enhance your home. Check out some of my projects for your own slipcover inspiration.

There are different styles of skirts for slipcovers some only go half way to the floor like this slipcover while others go all the way to the bottom

Once you have determined the style you want begin to measure.

Start by turning the slipcover inside out and fitting it onto the chair. Then you will want to measure up from the floor all the way around. No matter what style skirt you decide you will want the skirt to start the same distance from the floor all the way around. (Exception: on rare occaisions you might work on a chair that tilts more towards the back. In this case you may want to slightly adjust the positioning of the skirt)

Once you have measured all the way around, sew cording onto your line as shown in the piture above. If you haven’t made cording before there are a few tips in this post.

Next take the skirt piece. It needs to be hemmed before measuring the length to attach to the chair. A standard slipcover hem is 1″. 

This line is the stitch line to match up with the stitch line of the cording.

Once you have marked the skirt all the way around you are ready to attach it to the chair.

For more on making your own slipcovers be sure to grab you free intro to slipcovers e-book.

free intro to slipcovers guide

Slipcovers can be a beautiful way to enhance your home. Check out some of my projects for your own slipcover inspiration.

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