Hi everyone,

Here's my stab at trying to describe how I reshaped and recovered the glider. When I started this, I really didn't think I 'd do another one so I didn't make a pattern or make any notes. I have to say it took some fidgetting, fitting on the chair, pinning, sewing and refitting til the fit was right. I apologize if it's not clear in places but I never realized how hard instructive writing was :-)!

To square off the rounded top and arms, I used thin masonite (?) - similiar to the board material you normally get for the backing of Ikea type Billy book shelves. I found they were easy enough to score and fold with a heavy duty blade. And I had some around the house. I attached it to the chair in many ways - screws or nails, plastic cinch ties (the kind you used to tie cables together), string, wood glue... you name it - whatever I had around the house. Where you had flat surface to flat surface contact, you can nail + wood glue. e.g. the top of the curve on my chair back actually flattened out so I was able to have a piece of board rest level on the top.

I used the plastic cinch ties in places to loop and secure around the spokes. I had to make little wholes in the board to loop the ties through. I also suffed between the boards/spokes with foam and even strips of the cut board til things were pretty firm and rigid. I wasn't super concerned with it being totally neat - this was just to lay a basic foundation.

(Sorry, I couldn't strip the chair down to those boards but I glued some of the foam and batting on to that and I really didn't want to completely tear the chair apart :-)

Next I padded with batting and pillow stuffing and I sewed a very rough cover to slip over everything with some thick polar fleece I pulled out of the bargain bin. This step kind of gave me a trial run of how the final slip cover would be made.

Here is the back view. As you can see I didn't have boards/or that layer of fleece covering all the way down the back-- I covered as much as I could with the material I had on hand, but you may want to cover more of the frame.

I made this fleece shell tight and stuffed more where I needed. This layer of thick fleece smoothed the corners and further held everything in place.

To make the slip cover, I first took measurements of the reshaped chair:

• from chair seat (A1) up to the top of the chair, and width at the widest (across the top) (A)
• chair back from top of chair to floor (B)
• fabric to wrap over the arms, from floor up over the arm to the seat x depth of the arm (C & D)

I cut very rough shapes out based on these measurements with a wide seam allowance just in case. I would later go back and trim everything.

From here on, I pinned (tightly) where I needed to sew and fitted as I went along. I pinned everything inside out and tended to sew a little bit tighter than where I pinned because I found that gave it a more fitted tailored look.

I thought it would be easiest to start with encasing the chair back first so I pinned then sewed at the top corners of the back piece (A).

Then I made the chair back (B) with zipper down the centre, and attached that to (A) down to the point where the side of the chair would meet the arms.

* You can see from this photo, I later put in pleats at the bottom by the feet to allow for the glider's back and forth.

Like covering the chair back (A+B), I wrapped the cut fabric around the arm and at the corners, I folded and pinned where I needed to sew. I sewed to the point where the arms meet the seat.

Once the back and both arms were done, I attached them all to each other. Again, I first pinned everything inside out on the chair. I also marked with sewing chalk. It takes a bit of notching around curves and corners.

Making the slip cover :: Seat and chair front

Next was connecting the seat part of piece (A1) to the arm pieces (C & D) to cover the seat. First I attached a front 'skirt' that would cover the front of the glider's feet to the (A1) piece.
(I didn't make the seat area super tight or fitted because I knew I would be putting a cushion on top of that.)

There are a few inches of sewing I did to do attach the 'front skirt' to the side of the arms.

Then I sewed the back (A+B) from where I had left off before, and connected that to the side of the arm pieces (C & D).

* Reminder: I put in pleats at the bottom by the feet to allow for the glider's back and forth.

The last thing left is to hem all the way around the bottom and around the pleats. Oh, and to make the separate seat cushion - I padded medium firm foam cut to size of the seat and put a zipper along the back of the cushion.

The end :-)

I'm sure this isn't the only way to do it, but the order seemed to make sense to me. It took a few tries and fittings to get it right, especially the arm. I hope this was helpful. I know I didn't describe everything but I thought maybe the photos would give you a better idea than I could describe.

Good luck!