Shrunken Sweater Chair Reupholster

I took my favourite shrunken sweater and gave life to one of my antique chairs.
Time: 30 Minutes
Difficulty: Easy


I took this

Here is the original chair. Someone long ago had reupholstered it in a green-grey velour. Sure its sturdy but it's not me.

Here is the underside so I know it was professionally done. I didn't want to meddle with it so I decided to keep the old fabric on the chair to add support to my shrunken sweater.

First step is to see if the sweater will work. Mine was a wee bit too small but nothing some stretching couldn't fix.

So I used my legs and pulled on the sweater. It also helps if you can get someone else to help. You will hear some cracking sounds as the sweater stretches this is the felt bonds breaking don't worry your not hurting the sweater but check to ensure you are not making any holes where you don't want holes.

I was finally happy with how much it stretched out.

I cut the sweater down the exact middle of the back from the bottom to the middle of the back of the collar.

I stapled the middle of my fabric to the middle of the underside of the back of the chair.

I made sure the corners would tuck around the back rail of the chair without puckering.


Then I stapled the middle of the fabric to the middle of the front of the bottom of the chair.. I then worked my way from side to side of the chair pulling and stretching to keep the wrinkles and puckers at bay.

Trim the extra fabric off and you're done.

My finished chair has a lovely pop of cloud in my accent colour.