From this:

To this:

I've had the poor old ugly thing for several years and kept meaning to cover it, and finally, a couple of days ago I got it done! I used a piece of barkcloth salvaged from my MIL's after her flood. I had to sneak it out of her house, as we had been ordered to destroy anything made of fabric that had come in contact with the flood waters. The only exceptions were things that could be washed in chlorine bleach.

Well, I took a chance and actually threw the fabric in the washer with the bleach and you can see it didn't hurt it at all. The ribbon I found in a thrift store - several large spools of vintage grosgrain.