Piping (also known as welting) is an excellent way to add a professional touch to your upholstery, soft furnishing or clothing projects. It’s pretty easy to run up a tonne once you get the hang of it too, in-fact I actually like doing it, I find it oddly satisfying and hopefully you will too.

I will show you how to sew piping in 4 easy steps with pictures for reference. There are several different sizes of piping available from haberdasheries or the good ol’ internet, I am not sure of the size I used as I had a massive ball of it in one of my many craft boxes.

You can see here that I’ve cut a long strip of fabric and sandwiched the cord through the middle. The fabric length should be 2 inches longer than the distance you need (I’ve done 1m plus 2” here) and it should be 2 inches wide to allow for sewing onto your seems for the project its required for.

Quite simply sandwich the cord into the middle of your fabric and fold it over so it runs directly through the centre. Roll it in your fingers going along the length as you pin, make sure to pin quite close to the cord as this will help to make it snug into the fold and therefore nice and tight when finished.

Run down the edge of the folded in piping with your sewing machine, starting an inch in from the edge for where you need to sew together. used a button hole sewing foot as it gets in nicely to the edge, I’ve also turned my sewing machine foot setting to the far left so it sews close to the piping and tucks in nicely.

Also worth mentioning, when going around corners, don’t forget to add a few little snips to ease you round the shape.

And that, dear readers, is basically it! Don’t forget to run the machine to about an inch from the end and tie off tightly and leave a good section of piping out also. Always better to have a little too much, than a little too little!

You can then use your snazzy looking piping/welting to edge all sorts of cushions, seating, edging or clothing. This mustard coloured piping is going to edge a cushion on a glorious wingback. Its going to look amazing.

Happy Sewing and don’t forget to comment and leave me some pics of your makings!