This client was in the middle of remodeling and trying to finish by Christmas. She had me slipcover the Host and Hostess chairs (chairs at the head of the table) in a gray menswear type fabric. First of all I love gray and I love menswear! She decided to keep the red parson chair slipcovers for Christmas.

I just finished the new covers for the red chairs today and will be taking them back next week…..I am so excited to take them back and see it all put together. She’s doing an eclectic menswear type theme. Some of the parsons are going to be black/cream damask and some of them are going to be this awesome navy blue chenille design fabric. So watch next week for some more pics with her new parson slipcovers.

Hostess chair before…great lines and beautiful legs. She bought the chairs from DownEast Home.  I believe they are from Pottery Barn.

After in the gray menswear fabric.

I did a band around the front with piping along the top edge.

This fabric was great, it shaped really well to all the curves of this chair.

Side view.

Another side view.

The whole room….I was able to miss all the construction in this shot, her whole kitchen was being worked on. She’s planning on changing out the valances for the new menswear look, once I get her other chairs back.

I love the look with the host and hostess chairs being a different fabric.

Here is my little guy (our little elf) on Christmas Day. He put this old costume on a few days before Christmas and was dancing around in it….Heber’s mom made this clown outfit for Halloween when Heber was about a year old…so it’s 37 yrs. old!  A bit snug on a 7 yr. old…..hahahaha.  Anyhow we had him put it on and carry in the gifts to Heber’s family. We thought it was hilllarious!

Maui was great! The boys loved going there for their first time…we snorkeled, whale watched, went to a Luau, surf lessons, and went on a blue water rafting tour.

Here are my two oldest boys heading out to their surf lesson.

We rented snorekling gear for the week for all the boys….they loved it! By the end of the week, the older two were snorkeling out in the ocean without their noodles. They loved seeing all the fish and turtles.

My client’s wingback chair…great shape, but the fabric wasn’t working so well for her. The original cushion was 3″ thick (typical for older chairs) and flat and hard looking. She had seen the down envelope cushion I had done on Jenn’s chairs, and wanted to do the same for hers.

Before of the arm….not the typical wingback arm. I kind of liked it. I decided to run piping down the outside wing around the front of the curve and back into the inside wing.

So my piping went around one arm up and over the wing across the upper back and then down the other wing and around the front of the other arm.

Then I ran the vertical piping on the front of the arm to connect in the inside and outside arm. My client wanted the legs to show as much as possible, but still wanted a skirt. I self lined the skirt. The skirt was 8″ tall… I cut strips 17″ tall and folded them in half and ironed the fold (8″+8″+.5″+.5″) (.5″ is seam allowance).

Check out the new down cushion!!! I ordered a down envelope cushion with 5″ boxing and reused the existing cushion’s 3″ foam.

Down envelope cushions have a zipper in the back and you slide in your foam (usually 2″ less in thickness than your finished box height). That way you have a down cushion with a foam core.

Another After

Here you can see the piping on the top of the arm….ending in the inside wing tuck-in. I did do a small seam attatching the inside wing to the top of the arm.

Outside wing.

Side note—- here was our darling Christmas tree at the cabin. The boys had a great time decorating it. My running partner, Camille made me these awesome homemade ornaments out of old books. Notice the cinder block stand and the trunk is wrapped in a towel to help it to stand up.

This tree reminds me of a tree one year when I was probably in 5th grade. One day while driving to church my dad and brothers saw a HUGE (6-7 ft tall) tumbleweed next to the road. My dad is frugal like me and joked that we should take it home as our christmas tree. 3 hours later we were driving home from church and the tumbleweed was still “available”. They threw it on top of the car and drove it home.

My mom got some white snow flocking spray and sprayed the whole tumble weed white and shaped it a little bit at the top. It was great all the ornaments without strings would just stick to the tree. All six of us kids still talk about that tree to this day…good memories and good times.

 

I was chosen as one of the top 12 in the “Sew You Think You Can Sew” Contest at Mommy by Day Crafter by Night Blog out of 175 projects!!! Voting starts Wednesday (Jan 4th) 8am EST and ends Thursday (Jan 5th) night at 8pm….so head on over and vote for your favorite project (bottom 3 get eliminated every week). One vote per computer, phone, or ipad.

Week One theme for the contest is for “the Home”. 

Here is the project I decided to share. My client Jenn picked up 8 Hendricksal Ikea parson chairs for her dining room. She also picked up some cream muslin and a couple sets of tan linen curtains from Ikea as well.

Here is the before….I loved the dark legs on the parson chairs.

Here is the after…..

Jenn wanted to use the muslin on the main body…but it was too thin. SoI doubled it up (lined it) to make it a better weight so you couldn’t see the pinkish hue from the underneath chair.

We used the 2 sets of tan linen curtains as the outside back of the chairs and the top ruffle of the skirt. The tan linen ruffle was 4″ tall and the muslin ruffle was 6″ tall.

I gathered on the two sets of ruffles separately to ensure a tighter gather.

The muslin 6″ finished ruffle is self lined, I cut 13″ strips and folded them in half….(6″+6″+.5″+.5″) (.5 is seam allowance at top).

To reduce bulk, the tan linen 4″ ruffle has a 1.5″ blind hem along the bottom edge. I cut strips 6″ tall (4″skirt +1.5″ for hem +.5″ seam allowance at top)

Of course I had Jenn prewash all her fabric, so that she can wash her slipcovers and they won’t shrink in the wash. Tip— Wash in hot with double liquid fabric softener to help with the wrinkles, and dry on High to ensure maximum shrinkage. Depending on your washer size, you can wash 7-10 yds in a load.

After the skirts were sewn on, they seemed a little “fluffy”, so I took a hot iron and steamed and ironed the ruffles flat. I also made sure to iron the edges good to make them look crisp…especially the cream muslin layer since it was self lined.

I loved the contrast of having the outside back in a different fabric.

Jenn is tons of fun and is awesome at decorating and does event planning in the Utah area…if you are interested in her services, her site is http://www.jpieperdesign.com/ .
Since September she has had me slipcover her wingbacks, ottoman, and oversized chair. Love this girl!