Slipcovers by Shelley

Drop Cloth Wingback Chair

by

Hey Ladies….this project is for week 2 of the “So You Think You Can Sew” Contest. This week’s theme is “repurpose”— so turn something into something else.
Voting starts tomorrow…Wednesday at 8am EST and ends Thursday 8pm EST. So head on over and vote!
Click the following link to vote….Mommy by Day and Crafter by Night 
I had lots of ideas, but when it came down to it….I had to stick to my slipcovers. Also the fact that I had to write up this post before I even knew if I made it to week 2…we will be in Maui when this post is due. So I decided to stick to a project that I had already finished.

Painter’s drop cloth’s have gotten to be pretty popular to use for slipcovers. The texture and nubbiness is great….but if you are planning on washing it a TON, you should go with the oatmeal/cream duck cloth…which you get from Joanns or Walmart. Dropcloths usually have thinner spots and flaws/runs that you’ll need to work around, and they don’t hold up as well as duck cloth to numerous washings.

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.

Comments

  2. You do such great work!
    I made slipcovers for my living room out of those dropcloths — now I’m wishing I’d used the duck! lol