Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Thank God for Slipcovers

I set out on a mission to recover an old friend.

She's a lovely old lady isn't she?  She's covered in 1990's favorite fabric...dusty rose flame-stitch fabulousness.

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And, she reclines.

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Sounds like the perfect project for someone with no sewing skills to speak of, eh?  Yeah, I thought so too.

After reading about Pink and Polka Dot's success with slipping everything known to man and Miss Mustard Seed's success with using drop cloths, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

I started out with a premium drop cloth from Lowes.  The $18 kind, not the $30 kind.  I wanted one big enough to not have a seam down the middle, but inexpensive enough not to care if this went very badly.  I soaked the drop cloth in the bathtub with a cup of bleach.  If my fancy-schmancy front loading washing machine had a soak cycle that allowed the addition of bleach I would have LOVED to use that instead.  But alas, it did not.  I soaked it for a long time....about 5 hours or so.  When I got up in the middle of the night to feed my little one, I drained the tub and started the soak again with more bleach for about 5 more hours. 

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Then when we got up the next morning I shoved the whole thing into a 5 gallon bucket and carted it off to my washing machine, where I ran it through every sanitize and steam cycle possible....along with  more bleach.  You get the picture.

Once I was happy with the bleached drop cloth the fun began.  I hemmed and hawed over how I should proceed.  Did I want to do a straight-forward slipcover and ignore that fact that this grand lady reclines?  Or should I take the difficult road of making an intricate slipcover that would allow full functionality of the chair?

I picked the hard road.

So I pinned {sometimes straight into the upholstery...which I highly recommend if you're having difficulty getting your fabric to hang just right}...

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...and I cut...

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...and I thought "I should never have taken this on...I should have just paid someone to reupholster this"...

...and I basted...

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...and I sewed...and seam-ripped...

{and lest you think I have enough "spare time" on my hands to do this all in one day, let's just say it took me a week to get to the sewing part...and while I sewed it up in about 2 hours...it took a whole day to get 2 hours of sewing time}

And eventually...many, many moons after I began this whole slipcover affair...I finished.

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And I stood back and decided...

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...that the grand lady recliner needed a pretty pillow to accessorize {in lieu of fancy earrings or a cute purse}.  So I slipped one for her {post coming soon!}.

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And while I would love to slipcover my living room furniture...I think the slipping bug has left me for now.  I think.

2 comments:

  1. Well DONE! We want to throw a slipcover over the white couch from David's office-- the one with all the chow chow paw prints. But seriously? Neither your brother nor I got any sewing genes!

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  2. Y'all could totally do this! I didn't think I knew how to sew either...it must be learning by osmosis or something from all those years of watching my mom sew. But anytime I tried to sew when I was growing up, it was a disaster. Y'all should try getting a really inexpensive machine {like one that's under $100} and give it a try. If it's awful then you haven't invested that much {and you could probably sell the machine on Craigslist}.

    Or I could just drive the 22 hours and come help y'all out. I can be repaid with fish tacos and a spot in the sand. :)

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