Over the last two weeks, in between sewing projects, I’ve been working on re-upholstering my sweetie’s Grandmother’s rocking chair. It used to live in the family lake house on Lake Mille Lacs in central Minnesota. Her sons used to push her around the ice covered lake in this chair in the winter–doesn’t that paint an interesting picture?!
These are the before photos (above) showing the chair in what it was recovered in in the late 1970s/early 1980s (I’m guessing by the fabric that was used). My sweetie’s Mom recovered it at the time, and it lived a few decades in her family room before be passed down to her son last year.
So we tore it apart, down to the skeleton…
Love this “fix” his Mom added, that is lawn chair webbing strips used to hold in the styrofoam that was used to form the back….
And, then sweetie and I went shopping for fabric…revealing just how different our tastes in decorating are (it’s dangerous to find a guy who actually has an “opinion” on these matters…sometimes it’s best if they just don’t care!). I wanted to recover it in a traditional-contemporary print, something like this sofa…or this… But he wanted it to look more like it did when Grandma had it (a dark royal blue “suede-y” fabric. Yikes!). Well, she was his grandmother… so this is the compromise we came up…
It’s not exactly Anna Maria Horner or Amy Butler home dec…but it doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb and blends in with the rest of what I have…
The stripe is a dark blue (so he’s happy) and also has greens and golds in it (so I’m happy).
It’s trimmed in a gold braiding that really sets off the stripe…
And…it’s a million times better than the “before” model…. ;->
Tag Archives: chairs
Raucous Rhumba
Rhumba is a new line for Windham Fabrics by Rosemarie Lavin…full of great “rainbow sherbet” type colors, with accents of chocolate brown…yum! It came in last week to the shop I work for parttime, and I volunteered to make up a store sample with it. I wish I had better photos, some of these prints are fabulous…
I love that mosaic print, it looks like a Byzantine mosaic tile floor…gorgeous! A few of the prints here are not from the Rhumba line, but about 80% of them are.
So, this week in the evenings after work I have whipped up 53 square-in-a-square blocks in three different sizes, and have them all laid out on my living room floor (i.e. my high-falootin’ design wall) ready to get pieced together into a quilt top hopefully this evening. Everytime I walk past it, I move a block or two around, looking for a more eye-appealing arrangement…it’s sort of like an explosion of bright colored squares all over the floor right now.
I’ve been working on another project in the meantime, a re-upholstery project that I should have some great before-and-after photos of soon…here’s a sneak peak to whet your appetite:
Happy crafting…!
A few more UFP’s…
I’m trying to make myself accountable for all my Unfinished Projects (UFP’s), Unstarted Projects (USP’s) and Unfinished Quilts (UFQ’s). I started blogging them all on July 3rd, complete with current state and what needs to be done to finish them. (Only two more to go after this! Which will keep my total number under 20. Whew!) Here’s #17 and #18:
PROJECT NAME: Wendy’s slipcovers
DATE STARTED: Spring 2008
ORIGINAL PURPOSE: My sister and her husband moved into a house they built last October, just before she gave birth to her first child. Around that time, my mom, my sister and I picked out this fabric to make slipcovers for her old dining chairs and a curtain for her patio door. Sister doesn’t sew. The curtain got done, Mom made it. The room got painted. The slipcovers? Got started sometime in late Spring 2008, Mom and I made most of the first one together, I cut out the fabric for the other three, Mom started sewing them, then passed them back to me to finish the skirts and hems.
CURRENT STATE: This is one of her chairs, sitting in my Dining Room, waiting to be completed:
It looks good, no? Well, until you look down and look a little closer at the skirt…
And sadly, the other three are not this far along…
REASON FOR NOT FINISHING IT: I’ve just been busy! Too many quilts! Too many projects! Two many hours spent at work! What can I say?
PLAN FOR FINISHING IT: I’ve set a deadline for myself of Labor Day. 2008. God help me.
And #18:
PROJECT NAME: My hand-me-down chair.
DATE STARTED: Approx. 2002
ORIGINAL PURPOSE: My sister used to own this chair. It was always so darned comfy. Her Jack Russell terrier took a liking to it in her earlier, puppy-energy filled days. A real liking. She ate a chunk of the arm. Seriously. Ate it. As I mentioned, Sister doesn’t sew. She bought a new chair. I told her I’d take the old one, and I’d like the ottoman that went with it. I could fix it up.
CURRENT STATE: Her it is, Maggy took a liking to it as well…
It used to be a cream color. I recovered it in a soft gold color to compliment my new sofa (well, it was new when this project began). I made a slipcover for the ottoman. It was easy and it looked great. I rebuilt the arn of the chair, it’s the one on the right side of the photo–you’d never know it had a big chunk missing at one time. I reupholstered the chair. But I stopped when I got to the skirt…. (Apparently I have an aversion to skirts…)
It has seriously been this way for six years. Moved from house to house. Sat in my living room for six years unfinished. Maggy doesn’t mind, she still finds it one of the best places to nap in the house.
PLAN FOR FINISHING IT: The pieces have been cut and waiting to be finished all this time. I’m giving myself a deadline of New Year’s Eve. This year.
made by a brunnette 