How-To: Piping

 I purchased a large ottoman awhile back that desperately needed to be recovered. The original had 2 lengths of piping wrapping around the middle and bottom of it that I wanted to keep, but with my new fabric. If you've never sewn piping it might seem a little tricky at first, but it's pretty simple.

First, gather your supplies:

-sewing machine
-thread
-pins
-old piping from ottoman
-new fabric strips (just measure the width and length of the old stuff to see how much you'll need)
-scissors
-chocolate (for when you might accidentally stab yourself with a seam ripper...)

Next use your seam ripper to remove the old fabric and pull out the cording hidden inside.

After you've gotten the cording out, you'll sew it into the new fabric. The new fabric you're using should be several inches longer than the cording. Mine wasn't quite long enough so I had to stitch two pieces together. Rather than perfectly aligning the two pieces on top of each other and sewing a straight seam I joined them at a 90 degree angle to each other, and will be sewing a diagonal seam (it makes for a better seam that lays flatter and isn't as noticeable).

First pin them, right sides together, at 90 degrees and pin in place.

Next line up the pieces in your machine like this, and stitch:

Now I've got my diagonal seam.

Open the seam and press flat with your fingers.

Flip to the wrong side and trim off the excess fabric.

 

Next we'll be sewing the cord in place. Line it up down the center of the fabric and pin in place, leaving a couple inches of fabric empty at the beginning.

Keep pinning down the length of the fabric.

Next, using your zipper foot (to stitch very close to the cord), line up your folded fabric under the presser foot of your machine. The goal is to stitch as close to the cord as possible, without going through it.

Stitch down the entire length of your fabric.

And ta-da! Now you've got a beautiful new piece of piping! (I'll be sharing the rest of my ottoman makeover project soon)