Chair Crazy

Oh man. I'm way behind on my blogging again.  Bear with me over the next week or so as I try to catch up!

Recently, several people have approached me about doing chair-related projects for them.  Up until August, I had never ventured outside of clothing and quilts with my sewing, but now I'm proud to say that I can fashion a slip cover and reupholster!

It all started with my family friend/hairdresser Cyndi.  Over the summer, Cyndi and her husband fixed up an old house right across the street from their house and converted it into a hair salon.  I had been giving their daughter sewing lessons, so when Cyndi found an antique couch for the salon, she asked me to make a slip cover for it.  Of course I said yes.  Though I had never made a slip cover before, I figured it couldn't be any more difficult than it was to make my wedding dress.

Here's a picture of the couch without its cover on:

After consulting the Internet for directions on how to make a slip cover, I decided I had to be as methodical as possible about it.  I started by draping, cutting, and pinning a couple of old sheets to the couch to make myself a pattern.

It looked a little goofy with 2 different colors of sheets on it.

Then, too intimidated to start on the body of the couch right away, I made the covers for the cushions and pillows.

Next, I cut out all the body pieces and pinned them back onto the couch where the seams would go.  After that, it was just a matter of unpinning, sewing, and repinning, one piece at a time.

 

 

Finally, the finished product!

 

 

While Cyndi and I had been initially discussing the couch, she asked if I knew anybody who did reupholstery.  I didn't, but said I could give it a go as long as she didn't mind me testing out my upholstery chops on her chairs.  I'm so glad she trusted me because I had a lot of fun on these chairs we did together.

There were three chairs total, two matching ones and one loner.

First, I had to strip the chairs down to just the frame and stuffing.  I forgot to get a good "before" picture of the lone chair before I stripped it down, but here's a picture of the frame:

Sorry, it's kind of difficult to see.

 

Then, Cyndi sanded and spray painted the frames: white for the matching chairs, black for the other one.

 

 

While she painted the chairs, I worked on making the fabric-covered buttons for the inside back cushions and assembling them.

 

Then it was time to attach the newly-tufted cushion to the back of the chair.

 

 

After that, it was back to the sewing machine to make the seat cushions and welting.

 

I used the old fabric from the chairs as a pattern for the new fabric pieces.  This picture shows the pink fabric that used to be on the lone chair.  It was in definite need of improvement!

 

After putting David's air-powered staple gun to good use, I finished the three chairs.

 

 

She was one happy customer :-)

The last chair project I did for my friend Christy.  She bought her husband an Adirondack chair, and they intended to keep it outside, but they didn't want it to suffer from the elements or get pooped on.  I made her an outdoor cover for the chair, which was really an oversized slipcover.

 

This is the chair without its cover...much too easy for a bird to target.

And here's the chair with its nifty new outdoor cover.  Easy to hose off.