11 – Shower Curtain Repurposed to a Headboard Slipcover

One thing I’m hoping this Handmade 365 project will do it give me incentive to do some of the projects I’ve been sitting on around the house. This headboard slipcover is one such project.

When we moved into our house two years ago we bought this Ikea bed with an upholstered headboard. We really like the bed but the only option for a covering on the headboard was this boring ecru cotton.

We figured we could change it somehow to make it stand out a little more. Originally, I was going to dye it brown but was worried about getting as deep, solid brown like I wanted. So, the bed stayed this way but the headboard was looking grimier & grimier over time. Finally, I figured out the thing to do was sew a new slipcover.

The problem then became finding a fabric that was not only the right colors but had a pattern that ran the right direction. The headboard is 64″ wide & most fabric is either 45″ or 60″ wide in the direction the pattern runs. I remembered a cloth Marimekko shower curtain I had bought at Crate & Barrel to use as a table cloth. I really wasn’t wild about it on the table but I thought it would look great on the bed. To make things even better it was the perfect width for our queen-size bed.

This wasn’t a very complicated sewing project. The hardest part was laying the fabric out exactly how I wanted to the pattern to sit on the headboard. I cut the fabric so it hit at the top of the bed frame in the front & hemmed it. I didn’t worry about how long it hung over the back since no one would ever see that. There was enough fabric left on each side to wrap around to the back. I did that creating neat, square corners which I top stitched in place.

Then I attached some velcro with fabric glue to the bottom & middle of each side of the slipcover. I pulled the sides taut around the back of the headboard & then glued velcro to match the pieces on the slipcover onto the back of the headboard. Voila, new headboard!