Creating new seat covers

Hi all,

Having owned my 2004 VRS for a while now, I think it's probably the best car I've ever owned: my list of niggles and moans is impressively short.

However, pretty as it looks, probably my biggest gripe is the light grey upholstery. It really wasn't a very bright idea (I'm being rather polite here), and certainly doesn't mix well with a 3-year-old with perpetually sticky fingers...

I appreciate that the seat cover washing topic has been discussed at length elsewhere and the job has been on my "one day" (more like a weekend I fear) list to do - but the other day I got into the car with a pair of jeans with a broken pocket zip which ripped a chunk out of the back panel of the driver's seat , so it's action time.

In a nutshell, I've decided to make some replacement seat covers for the car myself.. (cue laughter). I've upholstered in the past and I've already got an industrial sewing machine that makes the house shake and scares the crap out of me: how hard can it be?!?? (more laughter)

My questions:

1. Before I buy a cow hide on eBay and lock myself in my garage, has anyone else had any experience of this that they can share?
   
2. Does anyone have a knackered seat cover or covers that I can use to make a template? I'm loathe to bitz mine to create a template until I'm reasonably confident that I'm going to be able to make a replacement as it's my daily transport!