Sewing Machine Cover Tutorial

AKA Pimp My Machine

I recently took my Brother in for a service and was berated for the large amount of dust inside of her, of course there was a dust cover in the box when I bought it, but it just isn’t pretty, and I’d far rather be looking at my machine that a big pvc covered blob sitting on my desk. So, after feeling suitably guilty for not looking after her, I decided to treat my sewing machine to a makeover and make up a shiny new dust cover to fit in with the rest of my craft room. This is another simple project and an excellent way to try out box corners for the first time.

Tutorial is behind the jump —>
You will need:

• Half a yard of outer fabric (this superb fabric is from the “Sew Fancy” range by Loralie Designs)
• Half a yard of your lining fabric (just plain white homespun for me)
• Novelty yarn/ribbon/ric rac (totally optional, but I wanted to tie it in with my inspiration board)

Measure and cut your fabric, I can’t give you exact measurements because all machines will be different. You want to measure from the midway point at each side, around the front and then to the midway point on the other side, add a little more for a seam allowance and this is your width and for my Brother XL-2230 it was 50cm(20 inches). Then measure the midway point at the top to your desk, for me this was 35cm(14 inches)if you want to leave your machine threaded then you’ll have to add extra to cover that. Cut two rectangles from your lining and two more from your outer fabric - it’s better to have too much fabric so you can shave some off when you’ve worked out the fit, than not have enough and have the cover too tight!

Place your fabric right sides together and sew the three sides so you’re left with an opening at the bottom, slip it over your machine to test the fit, if it fits well that’s fab, if it’s a little loose then just take the seams in a bit more.

We’re going to do box corners, they’re my favourite way of doing corners as it means I don’t have to think about lining up corners or battling with sewing in 3D. As great as they are they’re awkward to explain, so if you have trouble understanding this let me know and I’ll see what I can do to reword it in a way that might be more understandable. Whilst your fabric is over your machine pin where you would like the corners to come in, it’s just a rough idea at the point so it doesn’t have to be perfect, flatten the corners of your cover so that you can feel the seams matching through the sides and shove your pin in where you would sew.

Pull it off, flatten the corners so that they’re neat and the seams match perfectly, mark your sewing line with a ruler making note of how far away from the point it is. Do exactly the same on the opposing side keeping the distance between the point at the sewing line exactly the same. Pin it so the bottom fabric doesn’t shift and sew on your marked line, don’t cut off the excess yet!

Check the fit again to make sure your corners are okay, if everything looks good then go ahead and trim the excess off, if not, see what needs to be done - are the corners too tight? Then just unpick and move the sewing line closer to the point, are the corners too loose? move the sewing line further away from the point - no unpicking needed

Do exactly the same with your outer pieces, I’d recommend doing your lining first just so that any mistakes will be hidden inside the cover! Here is a close up of the finished box corner you can see the seams matched up and the corner formed. This technique is one I always use for bag bottoms, particularly large ones, it’s easy once you get the hang of it and the less seams you have the less weak points there are, not important here, but great when you’re lugging about everything but the kitchen sink in your bag.

Place your outer fabric inside your lining, right sides together. Pin the seams first and then the rest of the fabric. Stitch around leaving a couple of inches for turning. Turn right way out, push your lining inside the outer and topstitch all the way around making sure to catch the fabric to close your turning gap. Don’t forget to gaze in awe at my fat pregnant fingers.

And you’re all done, super easy and your sewing machine is now totally pimping. I added some novelty yarn to tie it in with the rest of my craft room, ricrac or some really funky craft ribbon would look great as well.

ETA: It’s just clicked for me (nine hours after I published this post!) that because of the lining this cover is completely reversible as well, so you could use two pretty fabrics and change up the look occasionally as you wanted

If you made this (or I’ve completely lost you with my instructions!) let me know, feedback is always appreciated.

This tutorial is for personal use only, please do not sell the finished items.