I'm going to go way out on a limb here, and announce my intention to hand-sew a fitted seat cover out of a Mexican blanket. Although I haven't even started the finished project yet, I have already spent hours and hours doing research, and I have spent a considerable amount on materials.
This is my proof of concept. I have hand-stitched two scraps of Mexican blanket together with a twisted cord for the piping, This is actually easier to do than you might think. Learned it from Google. However, I spent hours watching YouTube vids, and looking at instructional sites, and I couldn't find a single example of anyone sewing piping by hand. So, I sort of had to figure this technique out. I am not a seamstress!, but I do think this project is squarely within my wheel house.
And this is the donor seat. I intend to follow the original 3-piece design, with a wrap-around rear panel, a flat nose panel, and the main seat cover. You will note that the wrap-around rear panel extends all the way to the very front of the seat. Not doing that! That would be a crazy amount of unnecessary hand-stitching.
If and when I finish this cover, it will go on the 1973 TX650 Super RustBucket. The 1973 seat is a one-year only. There is no support for it, no aftermarket seat covers or foams, regardless of what some sellers claim. So, I'm not really doing anything too sacrilegious here, by changing the look of a seat that you can't buy an off-the-shelf cover for anyway.
Will mention that I am VERY tempted to repair this seat, something that is quite doable, and that I illustrated in this thread:
https://www.xs650.com/threads/seat-cover-repair-how-to-diy-a-primer.60298/
However, it would probably take longer to repair this seat than it's going to take for me to make the Mexican blanket cover. That is, if you don't count all the time I've already spent researching and shopping for this project.
Speaking of shopping, this is the blanket I bought. The pic is from the eBay listing. I'll get way into materials in a future post. This is actually the second blanket I bought. The first was totally unsuitable. I'll get into that too.
This is my proof of concept. I have hand-stitched two scraps of Mexican blanket together with a twisted cord for the piping, This is actually easier to do than you might think. Learned it from Google. However, I spent hours watching YouTube vids, and looking at instructional sites, and I couldn't find a single example of anyone sewing piping by hand. So, I sort of had to figure this technique out. I am not a seamstress!, but I do think this project is squarely within my wheel house.
And this is the donor seat. I intend to follow the original 3-piece design, with a wrap-around rear panel, a flat nose panel, and the main seat cover. You will note that the wrap-around rear panel extends all the way to the very front of the seat. Not doing that! That would be a crazy amount of unnecessary hand-stitching.
If and when I finish this cover, it will go on the 1973 TX650 Super RustBucket. The 1973 seat is a one-year only. There is no support for it, no aftermarket seat covers or foams, regardless of what some sellers claim. So, I'm not really doing anything too sacrilegious here, by changing the look of a seat that you can't buy an off-the-shelf cover for anyway.
Will mention that I am VERY tempted to repair this seat, something that is quite doable, and that I illustrated in this thread:
https://www.xs650.com/threads/seat-cover-repair-how-to-diy-a-primer.60298/
However, it would probably take longer to repair this seat than it's going to take for me to make the Mexican blanket cover. That is, if you don't count all the time I've already spent researching and shopping for this project.
Speaking of shopping, this is the blanket I bought. The pic is from the eBay listing. I'll get way into materials in a future post. This is actually the second blanket I bought. The first was totally unsuitable. I'll get into that too.