1060 Bliss

June 06, 2011

half way there...

Saturday night I finished the arms and the seat of my slipcover. I feel like I am finally getting some momentum going and hope to have it all finished in a few days!

So here's the progress pics and some tips on the arms and seat for those of you attempting your own slips!

The seam between the arm and the back rest is probably the hardest part of a slipcover for me. I find it very hard to pin in those deep crevices.

I don't have any great tips as I am still experimenting and learning how to do this. But I like to drape my fabric over the arm and then push the two pieces of fabric that will be meeting into the crevice.

Then I sort of pinch the fabric in the crevice and then pull it out (so I can see what I am doing) and pin it. To double check I push it back in the crevice to see if the pin is in the right place.

I usually reposition each of the pins for this seam about 5 times before I decide it's not getting any better. I hope I'm not the only one!

The easier part (for me anyway) is when you are not having to reach inside a crevice to pin. I like when you can just follow the lines of your couch with the pins like in the picture below, with the back portion of the arm.

Here is the side of one finished arm.

Here is the view from the back

Now that I have the arms, I can start adding the seat.

This is a straight line so it would be super easy to pin if it weren't for that darn seat crevice. So I decided to pin a little above the crevice. I'm a rebel like that. Plus, I figure the cushions are going to be covering it so it doesn't really matter if my seam isn't exactly in the right place. Oh, and because I hate pinning in a crevice. Have I mentioned that?

Ta-Da!

Now I just have to put on the front of the arms (with piping), the skirt and cover the cushions! Shouldn't be too much longer!

If you have questions, let me know. I'll try to help the best I can!

June 05, 2011

interrupting the slicover marathon for a very important message!

Friday I got my hands on my very own can of Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint. I am in heaven!

I have been listening to Marian and Shaunna and many others rave about Chalk Paint for several months. I've been dying to try this product, but there wasn't a stockist in my area and shipping for the paint is pretty pricey. I knew it would be worth it, but I didn't have a specific piece of furniture in mind that needed painting so I decided to be patient and wait until I actually had something to paint.

But then I received an email from my sister last week that there was a stockist in my area. I was beyond excited and emailed Stacey at Faux Studio Designs immediately. Turns out she had just placed her first order of Chalk Paint and was opening her new store on June 1st.

I still didn't have any new furniture to paint, but I couldn't resist heading over to meet her and check out the Chalk Paint. Stacy was awesome and I had a great time talking to her. I felt like I was meeting Birmingham's version of Miss Mustard Seed. We talked about painting furniture, buying old furniture, auctions, craigslist, yard sales, slipcovers and of course Chalk Paint!

I bought one quart of Old White because I know I will love that color on anything. I can't wait to try some of the blues and greys too, but I need to find some furniture first! Plus, I am making myself finish the slipcover before I start any new projects!

If you are in the Birmingham area check out Stacey's new shop, Faux Studio Designs! She is stocked with Chalk Paint plus she offers furniture painting classes and she paints custom pieces too.

She's located at 2116 Old Montgomery Hwy Suite B in Pelham.

I finished the arms and the seat of my slipcover tonight. Post on those coming next!

June 02, 2011

slowly, but surely

Projects take a little bit longer when you have a toddler at home. If I could just have one uninterrupted day I could finish this slipcover pretty quickly, but with a toddler it's more like one hour here and one hour there, wherever I can fit it in during naptimes and after he goes to bed in the evenings.

So I appreciate your patience, while I finish this project a little bit at a time.

So after I finally finished cutting all my pieces and washing everything*, I started working on the back of the slip. For some reason, I didn't take a picture of the entire back piece, but here are the details for those of you who want to know. I cut two pieces for my back and they overlap by about 1-1/2 inches in the middle. I hemmed the sides that overlap so they have a finished edge and I plan on sewing on ribbon to each piece so I can tie my slipcover in the back. This is what I did on my chair and it turned out to be my favorite part!

*just a note on cutting pieces and then washing. My small pieces did fine, but my largest pieces had A LOT of shrinkage. The seat had so much shrinkage that it was no longer big enough no matter how I tried to make it work. So I just want to warn you. If you try this route, you should make your cuts generously!

OK, moving on. After the back pieces were ready, it's time to sew the back to the "back rest". I don't really know what the correct term is for this part, but it's the front side of the back (the place where your back rests) so that is what I will call it!

Straight lines like this are easy. You just get your pieces where you want them and then pin along the line of the couch.

{Always make sure you are working with your fabric inside out, meaning the "right" side of your fabric is facing the couch when you are pinning.}

Once you're all pinned, it's time to sew! This is the most fabric I have ever worked with and it's a little difficult to manover it all around while sewing. I do really like this duck canvas though. It's a great weight and doesn't bunch up while your sewing like some lighter weight fabrics tend to do.

Next was the sides of the back rest. Originally my plan was to have the back rest all one pieces, extending all the way around to these sides. But I played with my fabric for a long time and could not get it to work. It was going to be too much fabric bunched around those corners. So I chose to use seperate pieces for the sides.

You can see below how I pinned the two pieces together. If you are a beginner sewer like me, curves are the most difficult. So take your time and stop every few inches to make sure your fabric isn't bunching up underneath your presser foot. Also when you are pinning it helps to use a lot of pins and pin close together. This will help you follow the curves better. I always use my blue fabric marker for the curves too. I just draw a little arch and it help me know exactly where to sew when I get to the curved part.

Below is one side after I finished sewing. I'm pretty happy with it and I am actually glad now that I went with a seperate piece for the side. Of course, I repeated these steps for the other side as well.

Next is sewing on the arms. I'll be back with progress pics and details as soon as I finish that part!

Thanks for following along on my slipcovering adventure!

May 30, 2011

let the slipcovering begin!

I've never worked with a piece of fabric this large before. It took me forever just to unwrap it from the bolt!

So rule number one is always wash your fabric first. You wouldn't want your slipcover skrinking once you had already sewed it together! When I slipcovered my chair I just estimated and cut my 10 yards of fabric into several big chunks that would fit in my washing machine. Afterwards, I wasn't really happy with the result. I felt like it was an inefficient use of my fabric and I had a lot of waste.

So this time I have decided to make all my cuts first (leaving room for a little shrinkage, of course) and then wash it.

First I cut about and 1 to 1-1/2 inches of the entire length of my fabric. This strip will be for my piping.

I really didn't want to measure and mark 1-1/2" for the whole 15 yard strip. So I just "eyeballed" it as I went. You can see in the picture below that every couple of feet I would hold up the beginning of my fabric strip to the piece I was cutting to make sure I was still cutting the right width.

Have you ever tried to take a picture with your left hand while you are cutting with scissors in your right hand? It's not as easy as it looks.

Then I did the same for my skirt, except it was about an 8" wide strip. I plan on cutting the rest of my pieces with pinking shears (I just bought a pair yesterday). That should help cut down on the fraying when I wash my pieces.

All this cutting got me excited for this project so I decided to go ahead and pin my skirt on the couch just to get an idea of how it was going to look.

I'm going to do a box pleat on each corner of my skirt. I am so excited to see how this comes together.

It's going to be sooo much better than the current, ugly, brownish couch!

Hope you all are having a wonderful Memorial Day!

More slipcover progress coming soon.....

May 26, 2011

a vintage spring mantel

I have a really hard time decorating this mantel. It's large, I don't really love the color of the wood, I don't really like the fireplace in general and I don't really like that oversized mirror anymore. All of those things could be changed fairly easily, but since we are putting this house on the market and searching for a new one I am resisting the urge.

In the meantime, I dress this little mantel up the best way I know how and try to ignore the flaws. I spent $3 on this entire mantel (the cost of the flowers). I just shopped the house for everything else.

I love vintage-y, white dishes.

My mom gave me this pitcher for Mother's Day. She bought it at an antique store in Florida. I love it.

And these little latte cups are from Anthro.

The candlesticks are also from Anthro, but they are really old. My Grandmother gave them to me at one of my wedding showers.

I love polka dots and try to sneak them into my decor whenever the husband isn't looking. I made this wreath based on a tutorial from one of my favorite bloggers Emily.

{Please ignore this horrible picture - reason no 5082 why I hate the mirror above the fireplace. You can see more wreath pictures and read about how I made it here}.

The vintage hankie under the pitcher was my "something blue for" my wedding day. It has my initial embroidered on it.

I love these inexpensive, hinged glass vases. They are from Hobby Lobby or "The Hobster" as Layla likes to call it.

I don't even know what kind of flowers these are, exept that they are the el chepo ones from the grocery store that are $3 for a big bunch and they last forever.

I made the clay tags myself. They were a fun little project and I hope to make more soon.

Cloudy day = bad pictures. Sorry about this one, but it was the only one I got of the entire mantel.

Linking this one up with Layla!

May 24, 2011

french laundry - i'm in love

I recently discovered these beautiful linens by French Laundry at Neiman Marcus. They are the perfect blend of casual, vintage & french. I love them. But they aren't cheap. A pillow runs around $150. They are beautiful, but there is no way this girl is going to convince the husband that $150 per pillow is no big deal.

Linen Sham

So of course, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never own one of these lovlies.

And then I got my daily email from One Kings Lane and it must have been my lucky day because they are featuring, none other than, French Laundry this week. I am so excited I can hardly stand it!