Upholstery 3: Rear Hatch

Upholstering the Rear Hatch

September 26, 2006

Continuing the theme from my kick panels and my door panels, I did the rear hatch panel.

Since I cannot find any more of that color vinyl at any of my local WalMarts, I decided it was a great opportunity to play with mixing in something else and doing a pattern. The rear hatch was a great test.

At WalMart I found some black faux suede for $3 a yard. I bought all they had (5 yards).

Here`s my hatch panel before messing with it. As you can see it`s in reasonably good shape, with the vinyl just shrunk a bit.

I drew the pattern on one, cut it out, then used it as the template for the other half. I figured this would give a perfect match. Once they were cut out I made relief cuts in the curves and pinned them together. During the pinning I discovered what a PITA it was, and knew it wouldn`t come out 100% the way I`d hoped. But I went ahead and finished.

And here`s the result after sewing:

Hoping to fill out the wrinkles, I used two layers of 3/4" batting. Didn`t do the trick, unfortunately. I attached it stretching and gluing it as tight as possible.

I stuck a couple chrome "quarter" buttons in as well as the chrome snaps used to attach the panel to the hatch. I think the stretching and pressure from those made a difference:

As you can see the wrinkles are still there, but not bad. But I won`t be doing the "butt" join again. For the rest of the panels, I`ll just roll the edge of the black suede and sew it flat to the green vinyl. It`ll use a bit more of the vinyl material, but not enough to make it worth showing my horrible sewing skills.