Chaise Me

my latest contract job/venture was a chaise lounge chair. i took this on, cautiously, as there were some things that scared me....such as upholstered buttons, AND cording. but, alas...i knew that i could figure it out. here is how she was proposed to me:




she arrived at the house last friday, much in need of new clothes, with a fresh bolt of white fabric. saturday, i began taking it apart.




look how crazy the inside of this thing looked...all of these colors, and i am using white fabric. this should be fun!


here she is in her underwear, ready to be re-covered.

the orange arms were pretty inconvenient, as the fabric was a not-so-thick white. i had to double up the fabric on the arms which made it a little more work. there was also purple hanging out in there too. the cotton suggests that this chair is pretty old...no foam. i could have replaced it...but, A. i don't know how and B. that would have cost her more money. the cotton was incredibly soft and comfy too.


now, i was so enthralled by this project that i forgot to take pictures of cutting out the fabric, and sewing the cording. BUT...first i traced new pieces from the old ones. much to my delight, most of the chair was stapled, so i had to shimmy everything in place...push, pull, staple. (it was a little harder than it sounds)...here is how she came together:



Once that was done, it was time to sew, and staple on the cording and 'curve-ease':

did i make a big enough mess?



the metal curve ease was one of the trickiest parts, and left me with a little bit of sewing to do at the end. after that, it was time to make the buttons:







aren't they cute? after a little more stapling, she was ready for the buttons


when i first started trying to attach the buttons, NONE of my needles were working. it turns out that while plush, cotton is really dense...the needles would only go so far into it and would just stop. so, check out my big momma needle that i got. 8 inches long, worked like a charm, but even with that i still needed to hammer the needle through the cotton




some finishing touches along to arms and top cording


and she's DONE...what a project this was.

Reversible Makeover

another one of my contract jobs from craigslist was to reupholster the back cushions and seat cushions of a lovely girl's dining room set. here are the pictures she emailed me:







i was pretty excited to take on this 12 piece project...it was a challenge! she already had the fabric handy, a bolt of 5 yards. the fun part was that the fabric was reversible, so she wanted every other chair to be done in reverse. very creative! and i think a great choice.


then comes the dreaded staple pulling. despite the strenuous nature of this, i prefer to never upholster fabric on top of existing fabric. I think it is tacky, and i would feel like i wasn't offering the best craftsmanship that i could. so it began




that is about half of the staples from one cushion...maybe a little more. each cushion believe it or not took about 45 minutes to an hour to remove all of the staples. i even recruited my darling to do one cushion!


he actually enjoyed the task...but only ended up helping me with one. what a tease. anyway...here they are naked, minus the seat cushions...i was too enthusiastic to recover them as soon as i took them apart:


now they are ready. the fabric was so so fabulous, however the warp (the string that offers the base for weaving) was very thin, and the weft (the material that is woven into the warp) was very thick and...well...fuzzy? (MAN would my weaving teacher be proud). since there was that issue, the weft would unravel very easily, leaving the cut ends very fragile to the touch, and a bit hard to stretch for upholstering, particularly around the pegs of the chair backs.


luckily it didn't pose a huge problem. here they are!




TA-DAA! i am going to ask her to take a picture of them put together, so that i can post it!

Leather Coats

recently i have been putting up posts on craigslist offering upholstering service. i figure, i LOVE! fabric, and i am okay at upholstering, so why not make a little money? i do however state that i don't do couches, love seats, or full covered arm chairs as of yet. i still have a lot of learning to do as far as sewing+upholstering is concerned. ANYWHO i got a small project for some bar stools.

i was a little worried that they would be difficult, seeing that they were round. i was envisioning a lot of folds, which is never pretty.

leather was requested, and i had the "task" of locating the material. let me tell you, i had so much fun with that "chore"! i found some genuine leather, but it would have been $129 as you had to buy the whole hyde, or $49 a sq. yard at the other location i went to which was out of his budget. so vinyl it was. i bought a piece at SAS, my favorite discount fabric store, but ended up using a more expensive (but still in expensive) piece that i found at a local upholstery store that i just discovered, that was much better quality. the vinyl had a bit of stretch, so it made the fold situation effortless!

BEFORE:




DURING:


AFTER:




i must say they do look a lot better! the challenging part (besides trying to avoid folds) was locating the holes so that he can screw them back in. either way, i hope he is satisfied with the new faux leather jackets

Fiesta Chairs!

finally! after 7 weeks of waiting for this fabric to arrive, i can show off my red bar stools.

it all started at a garage sale right across the street...i got these babies as a set for $20.


as if they couldn't be more of a blank canvas, the wood was even raw, so there wasn't even a need for sanding! when i took off the cushions to spray paint them....black originally....i saw this on the bottom of each cushion:


MADE IN MEXICO! SI! how do i NOT paint them red??? so i returned my black, and got a few cans of banner red spray paint.




what was fun about them, was that the knots and grains came through some of the red, and ended up making a pretty fun effect. other than that, i decided that these festive red stools needed a bright, mexican tile print. i immediately thought of the bright, fun plate that i got in mexico


so i started sketching, and came up with a tile and put it in a simple repeat, just like tiles




after that long wait, she came in the mail all ready for the patiently waiting stools:




now it's time to rip off the old fabric, cut out the new, and staple away




the hardest part by far, was this tricky corner where the cushion meets the back of the stool


and here they are!

New Dining Room Clothes

i got the exciting news a few days ago that my boyfriend's mom wanted her 6 dining room chairs recovered! of course i was there to the rescue. these dining room chairs really needed the help, as their seats were covered in an itchy, thick tweed like carpet-y-ish sort of thing. she got a great deal on several yards of a nice gold and burgundy floral, that would accent well with the adjoining sitting room that has a tan couch and two burgundy chairs. here's what they looked like earlier today:







Just after this step, i measured out some batting for each cushion. the seats weren't very thick, so we decided to keep the original fabric, and cover it with batting to add some more cushion and also to mask the texture of the old fabric. i forgot to take a picture of this step...woops...

anywho...next it was time to cut out the fabric. the tricky part was that i had to line up the fabric so that all of the seats looked uniform. good thing there was so much fabric...i had a lot of room to play with, and the print ended up working perfectly.



Once everything was cut out, i busted out my favorite air-powered stable gun and started firing away. here they are!





notice the fab job i did matching up the pattern??!!?!?!?! um, not to pat myself on the back or anything.