Love Seat Damage

[SteveA]

I have an older leather love seat and the dog chewed a hole.  I have a small piece of matching leather fabric to cover the hole. The extra piece is about 1 inch bigger than the hole all the way around. The love seat is about 8 years old so I just want to patch for now and get another couple of years out of it before replacing entirely.  How would you proceed.
Thanks for any advice to get me going in the right direction.
SA

[sofadoc]

Since you don't have enough extra fabric to reach from seam-to-seam, there is no really good way to fix it. You can remove the cushion cover, and try to patch in your new fabric, but it won't look very good. Ideally, you would want to replace the entire front boxing. But if it is currently topstitched, that would be difficult.

The best way to prevent this from reoccurring, would be to take the extra piece of leather that you have........sew a tight sock with it......and slip it over the dog's mouth ;)

[SteveA]

Thanks for the response.  Would you do a full overlay and glue in place ? sew in place with a curved needle ? maybe a stitching awl if I can get inside the cushion ?  There's no good answer but give me your best advice - the dog is our baby and it wasn't his fault  ::)   actually he is the boss  ???
Thanks,
SA

[sofadoc]

Is the cushion not removable? If not, then some type of glue job is about all you can do. You could hand-sew with a curve needle or awl, but it probably won't look very good.

There's really no good answer, unless you're willing to get "Jiggy" with it.

[gene]

Here's my 2 scents: rose and pecan.

Now, about the love seat:

You can take a piece of chip board, like whats on the back of a pad of paper.

Cut said chip board just a bit bigger than the hole. Pushing the foam back, insert the chipboard inside the hole. Curve the chip board to match the curve of the cushion.

Put glue under the edges of the torn fabric and glue to the chip board.

Now, you have a solid base to glue on your patch. The foam will be pushing against the chip board and not the patch.

If you have enough extra fabric, glue a "faux" patch on the other side to make it look like your dog chewed both ends of the love seat.

Best of luck,

gene

[MinUph]

The only thing that will hold up is a sewn in patch. No glue will hold up longer than a week with use. Hand stitching is an option but not a very good one. If it's leather it is hard to hand sew, vinyl / faux leather is bit easier but not much.

[gene]

I missed the part about it being leather.

If it was vinyl, I would think that an adhesive would work at holding on a patch.

I would not want to hand stitch that. It would be difficult.

And, anything you do it will still look like a patch.

gene

[SteveA]

Thanks guys,
Your site is awesome - I've received help whenever I've needed it.  The comments help me make the right decisions. 

I sent a piece of leather over to Garrett Leathers and they have a color that looks spot on.  If I can buy a portion of a hide I'll see about doing the front box from end to end. 

Many Thanks to all !
SA

[scarab29]

Oh , I thought you "loved seat damage " as I do , I call it job security.

[MinUph]

Good move Steve.