Slipcovered Chair and Ottoman for Boy's Nursery

I posted about the latest slipcover I was working on  a few days ago HERE.  The chair (with 2 loose cushions) and ottoman all covered with 8 yards of fabric....

 The fabric is beautiful...a pale duck egg blue with the white and grey birds....

It is really fun to see it where it belongs...she sent me these photos of the baby's nursery and it's all very soft and subtle...

 I love the pale colors --

 living in an older home with low ceilings I tend to pick those types of colors myself.

 The alphabet animal poster and the buffet changing table reminds me of all the Restoration Hardware nurseries you see in their magazines....

 This little bird mobile caught my eye too;

 she told me she made it from some of her old clothes....

Very cute...

Nice to see it where it will be living permenantly....and nice to have it completed for her after working on it for so long!

She has been so patient.

I'm sure she's happy to have it in the room to use with their little one...

Cutting Plan for Slipcovering Chair

 My very first cutting plan...

This slipcover is for the same friend that had me slipcover this chair....

 She has been patiently waiting on me.  I promised to do this for her and then we opened our Etsy shop and our booth space. 

 Needless to say it's taken me awhile.  She went ahead and bought her fabric (8 yards) back in the winter and it is now discontinued.  Yikes.  So I knew I was going to need to cut all my pieces ahead which are all rolled and labeled

 This is what I had left!  Needless to say I had the  cutting plan in my sketch book and I added all my measurements/number several times to make sure my math was right BEFORE I started cutting....I knew it was going to be close.

 The fabric is gorgeous.  The pale blue with the white and dark grey is very soft...

This is for her new son's nursery

 I usually make a box pleat in the back but since I was trying to stretch the fabric as far as it could go I decided on a zipper.  It sits nicely in the back under the piping...

 My first zipper in a slipcover but it went in pretty easily....

I also decided to go with a waterfall style pleat which I had seen on Shelly's blog.  If you've not visited her blog you should.  Especially if are a fan of slipcovers.  Her work is beautiful And read her story of how she got started...

She has a very successful business sewing slipcovers that she started out of her home when she decided to become a stay at home momma.  She very generously shared photos with me which I highly appreciated!  And she has an instructional e-book available, and I think a second one that is available or will be soon with more advanced skills.

Ottoman slipcover

I made this ottoman slipcover for a sweet friend I go to church with.  She and I did a sewing lesson awhile back which was a lot of fun.  And we stenciled on some pillow slips. 

 

 She wanted this to have a lot of numbers on it so she sent me some inspiration photos of coffee sacks and feed sacks used to cover furniture.  She decided to use dates that were important to their family....to make it more personal.

 I had several dates (birthdates, anniversary, etc) but I needed a few more....

So I decided to turn the letters of the alphabet into numbers instead....and then put names on it. 

Only in numbers....

This is made from drop cloth which will continue to fray and unravel as she washes and uses it, but 

 she also liked the raw edges on the outside so I double stitched all the seems and ran a bead of fray check inside.  

She's thrilled with it and I was happy with it too...

Stenciling on fabric with acrylics

I do a lot of projects for people that are personalized.  Who doesn't love having their own name, birthday, kids' names, etc on something????  So the above photo is my big professional setup for stenciling some drop cloth fabric.

For this project (an ottoman slipcover) I was doing numbers in a grey or worn black look. So I start with black and cream.  I don't do pure white.

I take my stenciling brush and  holding it straight up and down I pounce it lightly in the black and then start a new color in between.  

I take my brush (without cleaning it) and get a little cream and add it to my new color...

Here I either keep using the plate or I get a scrap piece of fabric and pounce the brush to unload some/most of the paint.

I use painters tape to lay out my straight bottom line if I'm doing a sentence or set of words.  I line up the bottom of my stencils with the top edge of the tape.

When I pounce my brush onto the fabric through the stencil it almost looks like there isn't enough paint.  This is what gives it the faded look....

This is after the stencil is removed....

I don't measure between letters or numbers.  With all my stencils I can see through the plastic and I just eyeball the spacing between....

I don't worry about mixing my paint all at once either I just keep mixing it a little at a time.  You're only using two colors and the variations in shade add to creating the faded, vintage look.

  This is another good example of using a light coat of paint.  If your paint is heavy or thick it will have a totally different look...

Here's the same number without the stencil.

And here's a peek at the ottoman slip cover--  More on that later...It's already in it's happy home with it's proud owner!!!

Slipcovered Wingback Chair

 When I started this blog way a few years ago one of the first things I saw all over the blogs were these beautiful slipcovers that ladies were making using painter's drop cloths.  I decided to try my hand at it and covered my loveseat and couch...

                        

 But mostly what I saw on the blogs were wingback chairs.  And I looked and looked at picking one up for cheap and it just never seemed to work out.  This one belongs to a lady I go to church with...it was her Grandma's chair and looked like this to start with....

Definitely dated and used but still in good shape as far as the frame and even the cushions went...

So she asked me about doing a slip cover for it and I just finished it up this past week....

 I do love a good slip cover!  So nice to be able to take it off and wash it....

 I like them to fit nice and snug so it looks more like it's upholstered....

 I love playing around with the closures.  You can always do a zipper but that's not very fun!  Especially when there are so many other things you can do that make for a more unique look...

 So for this one I chose these toggle style buttons and did 2 on each side...

 She looks much more "current" in this new getup and her owner was happy to be able to keep something from her family but make it more her own.

Feed Sack Slipcover

 I have really been "itching" to try to reupholster a piece of furniture.  I'm looking for the right piece to start with though....this little barrel chair was pretty sad but simple as far as upholstery goes....

 Nothing says the 80's like Mauve and Country Blue!  But she was solid and in really great shape...

 I just couldn't wait to make her over so I decided to slipcover instead...and with the feed sacks.  I ended up being able to pull it off with just 2 of them...

  I look around the blogs and see all these feed sack chairs but here in the midwest we're a little slow...you don't see stuff like this around here for sale.

 These two weren't exactly perfect---lots of wear and tear and even some repairs and holes....but I like the way she looks.

 This is what I came up with for the back and the closures...I wanted the stripes on the back to line up with those on the front of the chair too, so I did these wide set pleats with the buttons and the straps....LOVE how that turned out and the look of it...

 Decided to add some denim for the piping and the closure straps....

 And a little repair work I did using some really nice, stenciled numbers that were otherwise going to get thrown away....

Yesterday I soldered the corners of the little table I painted with the ASCP "Arles"...Hoping to finish that up soon and get some photos posted.

And working on some bleach pen pillow shams for the shop in some lovely spring colors....