Homework

Here are some home projects I have completed lately.  I have been turning my attention to those projects that I've been meaning to do for some time.

Our old house staircase has been in sad shape since I removed the blue carpeting that was there when we moved in 15 years ago!  I am not a fan of carpeted stairs and couldn't really afford a nice one anyway so I painted a runner.  Easier said than done!  The taping was really challenging because the stairs are all wonky and it was hard to keep a straight line.  I finally had to put to rest that it would be perfect and fudged some areas but it is definitely an improvement over the old scuffed up stairs.

I just completed two slipcovers for the two chairs in the sitting room.  They were covered with my first two attempts (many years ago) of slipcovering before I had any idea of what I was doing.  I invested in this DVD from Shelley Anderson who makes slipcovering look so easy it is criminal!  I cannot tell you how much I have watched this DVD over and over and have marveled at how perfect her slipcovers turn out.  Plus I am envious of her Juki industrial super zippy sewing machine.  If you want to do a slipcover I cannot recommend this DVD highly enough!  I even purchased her advanced slipcovering guide to tackle the arm chair with telephone arms.  I did not know they were called telephone arms but the front of the arms do have this ear shaped piece that curves inward that does look like an old fashioned telephone (the kind that only people of my age would recognize!).  Let me tell you those arms plus the heavily scrolled back were challenging little suckers!

I am pretty pleased with this one and I love the knife pleats.  It was relatively straight forward and very much like the chair that Shelley does in her course.  I made a cute vintage barkcloth pillow to accent it which I love.

Here are those telephone arms and I found that if I fitted one piece and cut a matching one for the other side that was the best way to keep them identical.  They are very prominent and they really need to be identical and let the rest of the slipcover fit to them.

Now I had the bright idea that I would do a scalloped hem on the skirt and I learned another thing:  Aways put vents in the corners!  I had the whole thing done and the skirt was too tight.  I was not going to take that whole thing off since I had already serged the seams so I ended up cutting the back corners and putting in a ruffled vent.  It doesn't look awful but it is not ideal and it really bugs me right now.  I do like the scallops but the knife pleats were easier.

I also screwed up the band and the seam shows in the front instead of the sides where is should be.  I ran out of fabric and was not going to buy more so I will just live with it and it will remind me not to make that mistake again.  Speaking of fabric, I used drop cloths from Home Depot.  Would not recommend that again.  Each drop cloth is a different weave and shade of color and you never know what you are going to get!  The quality is not that good and for all the time and effort that goes into these things you are better off buying decent fabric.  I should know better.   The pillow I made from an old Waverly print.

Having both chairs with the same slipcover does make the room look more united.  Next up I will paint that table in the foreground with some homemade chalk paint.  It has lovely details that should not be covered up.  Thanks for suffering through my slipcovering/DIY woes and victories!