Chair, covered in chairs

We have been re-doing the house because of the burst pipe. We are finally finished with the walls and all the important stuff. But making some of it all new and nice made the parts that were left look old and sad and dirty.

We have decided to replace all the sad and old with the new and colorful.

My husband bought this chair as part of a set about 10 years ago. We have two of these chairs, two ottomans, a couch and a love seat. One of the chairs has been designated as Mama's comfy chair.

I have set it up as a little reading / working nook. Got myself a nice lamp and a basket to keep all my stuff in.

I could still use some more storage to make this a real work area. But I decided to go ahead and make this chair not look so sad. Fortunately the stains do not photograph as obvious as they are in reality.

 I wanted to just pop the bottom off and staple the fabric on for both the chair and the ottoman.  But the screws were pretty much stripped and would not let me do that.

Because I ran into this problem, I decided to go ahead and make a slipcover. The advantage of a slipcover is that I can take it off and wash it. Since it does have a white background I decided this was the best approach even if it meant it was more work to complete.

Getting this project done has been on my to-do list for about a month. And never letting it get to the top was not making me happy. Therefore I was determined to be able to cross it off by the end of the day today.

Look how much more cheerful this chair looks now. And it is funny a chair covered in chairs! This fabric is from Ikea and was only about $5.00 a yard.

The back pillow was the easiest part, strangely. I put a zipper in the bottom of the cover and smooched the original pillow into the new cover.

For the bottom of the chair and the ottoman I made just some easy pull on covers. The weirdest spot was were the arms meet the chair cushion. It is a tight squeeze, but I managed to wiggle it on there and get it all setteled.

Now my comfy chair is not only comfy but is also cheerful and is on the list of my favorite spots in our house.

There are lots more things that I want to spruce up and get off my to do list. But I am happy as I check this project off.

Peace Out - C

p.s. even with all the problems this project took me about 4 hours to complete. Sometimes the hardest part is deciding what to start on.

 

One down 5 more to go ......

One of my neighbors emailed me a few weeks ago asking if I could make chair covers for her. I said yes without really thinking too much about it. The chairs are an odd shape is why she has not been able to buy covers. And she wants the covers because she is Indian and has 2 small children and apparently Indian food, though it tastes lovely, stains particularly bad. She said she now realizes why all the Indian moms she knew as a kid had the plastic covers on their chairs.

So she needed something that fits the chairs well but is washable. And will look nice in her new dining room. We settled on a price and set to work.

I have never before made chair covers without a pattern. And the whole reason she needed me to make the covers is the chairs are odd sized so I could not use a pattern. I was a little terrified. Until, I found mu inspiration, this great book Fabric Remix by Sandy Stone.  In is she shows you ways to use fabric to re-do things that is very creative and she makes it all sound so simple.

Step one: She brought the chair to my house. I made a pattern from it so that I could figure out how much fabric I need. Basically what I did was drape fabric over the chair and trace the lines of the chair. Then I had to measure out and draw in the seam allowances to make sure that the cover would be tight but have room to adjust if needed.

Step 2: Next I sewed the muslin pattern pieces together to see if the pattern worked. Fortunately it was mostly right on the first try and I just had to make a few small adjustments. So I estimated that we would need 2 yards of fabric for each chair.
These chairs are very tall and I decided I wanted to do the entire back in one piece. Each cover only has four piece, back, sides of the back and the seat.

Step 3: Go shopping for fabric. This was more challenging than my client expected, but I knew what we were in for. She fell in love with one fabric and then there was not enough of it. After a couple of hours she liked one fabric but wanted to make sure it was washable. So she took a sample home and washed it.

Step 4: Since the fabric washed well, I went back to the store to buy it. Fortunately it was still there and they happily cut 12 yards of it for me.

Step 5: Ignore and avoid this project for about a week. I admit I was nervous and was hiding from this project a little.
 
Step 6: Make the first cover. I have to admit it went so smoothly I was not sure why I ever doubted myself? I guess all artists / crafters question their abilities from time to time. But apparently I was up for the challenge.

So as of now I have one cover completely done and 3 more cut out so I just need to cut 2 more and get them done and delivered!

Peace Out - C