Please have a look at these and tell me how easy it would be......

[TiredMule]

We have this sofa and two of these chairs in our conservatory. They have been fantastic so far and surprisingly I've really liked the plain cream colour......but now we have a puppy and they are not looking so cream now as he runs like mad round the garden and they leaps onto them on his way into the house

The sofa's cover can be removed and washed and you can buy spare ones but they are not very exciting. So I was thinking I could either dye the cover or make one. Would dye be a really bad idea? Will it stay fast?

The chairs are a more pressing problem as the covers don't come off. How easy do you think it'd be to make a cover for them? I was thinking a shaped lose cover? I used to be able to can use a sewing machine and thought it might be simple-ish to do....please tell me if i'm very wrong before I attampt it!

How do I go about it? Do I use some cheap fabric to make a mock up first? What do I make a template with?
Any tips and suggestions would be very welcomed

Oh and the other thing-I need to make them machine washable due to the dog, and 2 young dds. Do I wash the fabric before I even do anything to ensure it doesn't shrink? But what about fraying? Sorry-I really am clueless!

Dying the cover would probably work nicely because they're 100% cotton. They will stay fast if you do it properly in the washing machine and with the right quantity of dye and salt but:

1. If polyester thread has been used for the seams, it will stay cream (not a bad look in my own opinion)
2. because you need to dye in hot water, the cover could shrink altogether.

Thanks Sweet, I might try dying the sofa cover, but I need to sort the chairs out first (can't dye them as they do not come off) so if I make successful covers for them maybe i'll try making the sofa one rather than risking it shrinking....

So how do I go about making the covers? What do I do first?

It shouldn't be too hard to make slip-covers for those armchairs, but you're unlikely to get a tight finished look like the originals, by virtue of the fact that you want them removable, they will need some 'give'.

Google how to make an armchair slipcover. You should find something.

Thank you OMDB- I had a look last night (why I never thought of googling I don't know!) and found several things. You can buy covers from Ikea for the armchairs (didn't know!); people make covers for £100+; people have made covers and used 3.7m of fabric.
So since we have limited budget I have realised that making covers will be expensive and bought ones way out of budget so if we buy the plain white/cream ones and dye all the covers that will have to do for now. Although they will need a bit of adapting as they have pleated skirt things at the bottom that we don't like-i'm hoping that will be easy!?

I saw on your original chair link: "Extra covers are available for variation and renewal". I just thought you didn't like the colours....

The covers appear to be cotton and washable at 60 degrees so I think it should be possible to dye the covers without shrinking them.

We have a klippan sofa. I managed to pick up a patterned cover in an ikea sale for 13 quid, I don't think you could even buy the material for that!

Lots of people sell homemade klippan covers on ebay, have you looked there?