My Homemade Harp Base Cover

We all know the importance of protecting your harp from the weather and from bumps and scratches. And if you move your harp often, as I do, you must have protective covers.

I am definitely a fan of those wonderful transport covers that Lyon Healy has. But they are expensive and very bulky. (I know – bulky is the point.) And I have three concert grand harps to cover.

So when I needed a new base cover, I decided to try a homemade version. It’s not fancy, but it does the job for a lot less money. It’s also something of a conversation piece. Here’s the design I came up with, as executed by my talented mother-in-law:

It’s very much like a large shower cap. We cut the base fabric following a tracing of my harp’s base and adding some extra room for padding and seams. For the fabric, we used some Gore-Tex that was leftover from making some groundcovers for underneath camping tents. The Gore-Tex is waterproof and very durable. Plus, I now have a camouflage harp base cover.

The cover bottom side up.

The cover seen from the top

The cover protects the front of the harp.

We cut two pieces of fabric for the base and stuffed them with quilting. If you prefer, you could put a carpet piece in the base for more protection and more firmness.

Then we cut fabric for the wrap-around sides of the cover. Again we cut a double piece, so we could put padding inside. We put elastic in the top edge of the side piece, and we put hook and loop closures on the ends. We attached the sides to the base and stitched it around.

As you can see, the design is fairly simple, and the construction is also easy. With the soft padding we used, I can roll the cover up for storage. The cover goes on and off the harp easily, and my base cover is easily distinguishable from anyone else’s!