previous fitted sofa cover 

Two months ago I had an interesting conversation with a lovely lady about a sofa cover. It goes a bit like this….

Lovely Lady:  ‘I was wondering if you made fitted Sofa covers?’

Me:                  ‘yes I can cover most things’.

Lovely Lady:  ‘but what if the sofas in France?’

Me:                  ‘What do you mean the sofas in France?’

Lovely Lady:  ‘Well I have a little house in France and the sofa there needs covering.         Its such a comfy sofa I don’t want to change it.

Me:                  ‘Eeek I’m not sure I wanna do a cover for something I cant physically pin fabric to’.

Lovely Lady:  ‘Well I don’t mind if it’s a little on the big side’ 

(Oh god, I don’t do a little on the big side, I’m an annoying perfectionist and I like things to fit exactly) 

Me:                  ‘Hmm, no I’m really not sure’

Lovely Lady:  ‘It’ll be fine I’m sure, just give it your best shot’ 

(Oh god help me again, I don’t do ‘give it your best shot’ either. It has to be perfect or not at all. If it’s not right is my reputation on the line after all.) 

Did I mention she was a lovely woman?

After a few more persuasive ‘go on it’ll be fine’ comments I reluctantly agreed.

I did have the old cover to go by, and at the end of the day would it really be that bad? 

The answer to that question was yes. So I procrastinated for three week finding other things to do, like offering to help bed the cattle and go and check how the cereal was growing. (the boys would have managed perfectly well without me but if it meant not having to think how I was going to tackle that four letter word, then walking through fields and cow poo was preferable) However I couldn’t put it off forever.

Its one thing working from a flat pattern, but a pattern that was 3d was horrendous. I couldn’t undo the old pattern because then I wouldn’t be able to see how it went back together again and it had some odd tucks to allow for angles going round corners.

I deliberately added an extra 2cm to ever seam (it would be better to be a tiny bit bigger than too tight) but due to some inbuilt system in my brain that I couldn’t override I’ve made it to exactly the same size. At one point I had my husband and his brother standing in the lounge pretending to be a sofa, holding up their arms in an odd fashion to try and create the right shape for the arms and back. (I wish I’d photographed that). 

The final result is that the very lovely lady had just left (very happy) with her sofa and cushion covers, and left a lovely bottle of wine along with payment. I’m very touched at her generosity and her faith in me, especially as she won’t be able to check it fits until she goes to France in May. She has promised to email as soon as she gets there to let me know it fits (or doesn’t), so I shall hold my breath until then…tomorrow blog maybe a little vague due to lack of oxygen!