The Chair Makeover: How to make piping


The chair makeover continues with it receiving a few coats of paint over the weekend (you can catch up with the 1st post here). So now it just needs this cushion to be finished off.  Today I gave piping ago.  And I must say I'm a little excited at how fantastic it turned out.  I can see that I'll now be adding piping to everything! 

So here's how you make piping:

It starts off a lot like you are making bias.  Cut your strips on the bias. The width of your strips will be determined by the thickness of your cord.  You will need at least a 1cm margin of fabric after the completed seam.  My cord was approx 6mm so I cut strips 4cm wide.

The easiest way to cut you strips on the bias is to fold your square piece of fabric over like a triangle.  The longest diagonal side with the stretch is your bias. 

Join your bias pieces to make one long piece. Press open your seams and trim.


Place your cord in the middle and fold over, it helps to pin the first bit until you get going.


Change your machine foot attachment over to the zipper foot.  This allows you to get nice and close to the cord.


Use a straight stitch & go slow!

Next time I'll show you how to measure up & cut out fabric pieces for the cushion and how to add the piping.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the tutorial Jodie. I am keen to try it. The only piping I ever made was with a pre-purchased bias binding and somehow it ended up a little bumpy (not smooth and straight) Any ideas where I may have gone wrong??

Jodie @ The Haby Goddess said...

Megan the only reason I can think of is the fold lines from the pre-made bias made have caused it to end up bumpy.
With all the lovely things I've seen you make, piping with your own bias pieces would be a breeze for you. It really is very,very easy :)
Feel free to contact me if you need any other help.

Tiff said...

Oh THANKS Jodie, I am looking forward to the next part! I wanted to put some piping on a cushion but wasn't quite sure what to do! X

Unknown said...

Thanks Jodie :-)

I'll try out your tutorial and let you know how it works for me!

I'd really love to be able to incorporate piping in a lot of my designs - it gives such a nice finish!