Couch Slipcover: Epilogue

I recovered the couch in July/August 2010.  *checks watch*  It is now June of 2012 - almost exactly two years later - and the slipcover is in great shape, still comfy, nice and soft, and although there are a couple of spots where the cats have clawed at the fabric, it's not bad at all.  I'm still really pleased with how it's holding up.

Except for one thing.  It's fading

1. really fast
2. unevenly - as in, the whole couch looks like it was made with four different brown fabrics.   Which is what happens when you use curtain panels to upholster your furniture:  they didn't all come out of the same dye batch, so they're aging differently.  Which I knew, but...well, they were cheap.  I needed cheap. 

Options: 

• throw a gigantic soft throw of some kind over the whole thing.  If I can find one large enough to look right, that is not just a bedsheet.  Which I can't. 
• remove the entire cover, wash it, and attempt to dye it. 
• remove it, take it apart, and use the pieces as a pattern to make a new cover...yup, completely replace the cover after only 2 years.   

I'm tempted to be mad that the thing is getting weird after two years - but I kind of intended it to last for a couple-three years, just until I could figure out and make a nicer cover for it.  I used what I had, intending to replace it.  And it's getting to be time.  What to do, though? 

1.  I've always wanted a blue velvet couch
2. have you ever tried to scrape cat hair off velvet?

funky-comfy drop cover, or soft linen?
But, the whole reason I slipcovered the thing
was so I didn't have to drape blankets over it! 

pattern-y? 

slightly more monochrome pattern-y?

or, since it's mostly the cushion fabric that's faded,
not the main body of the couch, I could do a co-
ordinating fabric on the cushions only, for the time
being.  I've done it before, and it was neat.  But..

Hm.

.