She's a lovely old lady isn't she? She's covered in 1990's favorite fabric...dusty rose flame-stitch fabulousness.
And, she reclines.
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.
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}...
...and I cut...
...and I thought "I should never have taken this on...I should have just paid someone to reupholster this"...
...and I basted...
...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.
And I stood back and decided...
...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!}.
And while I would love to slipcover my living room furniture...I think the slipping bug has left me for now. I think.
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!
ReplyDeleteY'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}.
ReplyDeleteOr 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. :)