A Chair Re-Padded

 

We have two extra dining room type of chairs around the house, and they've both had the gold texture-y upholstery fabric absolutely shredded by several generations of cats. They both needed recovering, but only one got removed from the chair so that I could work on it. I glued together pieces of the leftover memory foam pad (from making outdoor bench pads) into pieces of franken-foam that would be close enough to the right shape and size. It's a very squish-able and not super firm type of foam that will be able to be manipulated into shape.

I measured out some of the upholstery fabric that I had left over from making a futon cover 16 years ago. It's still an interesting pattern but in a rather boring color way. If only this was bright colors! Maybe next time the chair needs recovering...

After a million staples and some hammering and folding and cutting, it's all secured and done.

My DH installed it (it just screws back on) and now it awaits the next few generations of cats. So far, they've just been sitting on it nicely to look out the window.

So now I need to get the next one done, as the rest of the Franken-Foam is awaiting.

FabMo in Santa Cruz

 FabMo selection event in Santa Cruz is always so fun to volunteer for, and they're coming back again on September 20th and I will definitely be there. I love seeing all the teachers scooping up materials for their classes, or college aged folks working on art projects for school or community events.

Here was my selection, I'm putting them up against the greek key lime/cream fabric I'd bought to re-upholster an ottoman. I think they go well enough to make up some good pillow covers.

Adding To The Chaos

Adding to the chaos that rules my sewing room, are several new goodies, some quilt related, some upholstery related too. I have 4 chairs to recover, and only have the fabric for one of them.
First is a selection of upholstery trim scraps that I purchased in a little plastic bag for $1.99 from Harts Fabrics. I swear this is just like crack for me, I find that I really can't resist the siren call because:

• the small amount
• the cheap price
• the color coordination
• the array of textures
• can very easily see using this on a wall quilt (I do have a history with fringe after all...)

I have a feeling I'm not the only one that will buy one of these little goodie bags. Upholstery fabric and trim, also from Hart's, that I'm using to recover an old ottoman. It is almost done, it is taking a while to hammer all the upholstery nails in. I can only hold the hammer for a little amount of time. I'm also going to recover the seat cushion and arms from the leather chair that this ottoman goes with. It is really worn out and ripped in a couple of places. I love how the worn-in leather feels, but I don't like how it looks now.

This is a shiny (I'm guessing acetate) about 8"x10", and it is a really cool cut-out fabric. Another FabMo find. It made me think of one of those fancy neckroll pillows, couldn't you see it on top of a red or yellow silk. It is too small to wrap all the way around one of those pillow since it is a sample. But I like the pattern a lot and am thinking I'll use it somehow in surface design. And lastly, four new fabrics from the CQFA retreat weekend, the two on the right were in the freebie pile. I'm finding I'm really into checks and checkerboards these days.
But hey, when this picture loaded I noticed the colors don't look right, especially the fabric on the lower left is this intensely weird chartreuse color, which was why I bought it! You just don't find that color very often, certainly not with such a lovely pattern. The same fabrics with a flash, there that's a little better but still kind of brown. Oh well, I'm giving up on getting the right flash or lighting. At least for now.

Closets and Chairs

Six closet doors being painted. They were removed when we demolished our upstairs and then stored during the remodel. We hated how they looked so dated and ugly, so I sanded the rough spots and painted them to match the room doors and trim. I propped all the doors up on the front lawn and went crazy painting them before the rain this weekend, had to do two coats. Especially since these little tiny gnat bugs decided to have a mass suicide on the wet painted doors leaving behind red wine colored streaks. Not too pretty, thank goodness for coat number two of paint, which I let dry in the garage thankyouverymuch.

Not perfect, but much better than we could find at the local Home Despot. There, it was either mirrors or very lightweight doors that would break. I know how hard the boys are on doors, and it seemed really silly to spend $1,000 on mirrored doors that would just get ruined. So hey, This price was right, *free*. I love reusing stuff. Unfortunately we had to purchase tracks and wheels for them as those got bent and tossed during the demo for $25 a set. But they glide very very smoothly and now we don't have to look at our closet contents all the time! Hooray, what a difference that makes in the room, I had no idea.
Last thing to do is install some kind of facing trim to cover up the track glider up at the top, but we have lots of unused new trim lying around that matches the closet door framing, I just have to paint it on a sunny day and get handy husband to install it.
Next up is some sewing, gasp! No really, sewing. I'm recovering or making a slipcover (haven't decided quite yet), a chair that we got off of Freecycle several years ago. You can see a tiny bit of it here, it is a very intensely ugly deep orange. Currently it is a ground chair, with no legs, and we are in negotions as to what kind of legs to add if we do. This is Alex's chair, so he chose this super cool fabric from Fabric.com.
Pretty mod huh?