Hi. Hard to believe this month...heck; this YEAR!, is very nearly over. Up here in way northern coastal CA we really didn't even have a summer this year. It all just goes by in a 60 degree WHOOSH!
Last time I mentioned I wanted to share pics of a chair I reupholstered. I've always been a big fan of slipcovering (which I just kind of figured out on my own) but tufting and everything being tacked down scared the heck out of me! Last month when I went to visit my mom I brought this old chair of my grandma's. Mom had reupholstered it to match my bedroom at the time 20 years ago, but it had sat in the garage for about the last 15 years.
First and foremost, you very carefully take it apart because the old pieces of fabric and trim become your new pattern pieces.
As soon as I saw the tufted cushions exposed I had the big AHA!. Seeing it all undone made it all make sense. :-)
Sweet shape, huh? They sure don't make furniture as solid as they used to! For years there was a tag attached to the bottom of this chair with my grandma's name on it as it had been custom made for her in 1954. Sure wish that didn't get lost.
So. from here I figured you basically have two tufted cushions that get nailed on and then set about covering the rest.
Keep in mind we used the old piece of fabric to mark (with pins) where the new buttons would go. My tips illustrated in the pic above are: Sew your button through a few layers of batting (on the back side) so they won't just pull through and use a strong poly cord like this kite string we nabbed at the $store.
This was about the time mom threw her hands up and said, "Well, you're not listening to me and you seem to know what you're doing now so I'm going to go quilt." ;-) Thanks mom. I didn't want to replace that wide ruffled solid strip so I married the front to the back with this piping. Above I simply glued it on and held in place with pins while it dried. (seriously, it had taken us about 3 hours to remove all the nails that had been used when in fact some glue here and staples there are also just fine.)
It's very nearly impossible to hide the nails when attaching the back piece so I just went bold and used these nice decorative silver nail heads.
Never really understood how easy it is to attach the skirt. We just cut 1/2" strips of cardstock, tacked it all around, and then
Voila! Clever. I learned a lot by redoing this chair, and I don't think I ever would have attempted it without mom's help, so again; THANK YOU!
Next month she is going to attempt to show my how to crochet. I'd be happy if I could just add a cute little border to pillow case edges. I'll let you know how it goes :-)