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Most days I consider myself pretty crafty (in the strictly Martha Stewart-y sort-of-way, of course, as opposed to sneaky and diabolical). I can make pillows and futon covers, re-furbish a nasty old secondhand lamp, re-upholster a basic chair – and though admittedly, my techniques may be amateurish, I like to think that the results are generally fairly acceptable, aesthetically-speaking anyway. So when my boyfriend and I recently snagged 6 nicely-shaped and sturdy dining chairs for the bargain price of $80 total, I didn’t hesitate to declare that the fact that they were covered in a weird vinyl(!) upholstery wouldn’t be a problem: I’d just make slipcovers for all of them. So what if my sewing experience thus far had been limited to pillows and futon covers? Confidence can carry you a long, long way in this world. But there’s a lot to be said for having an awareness of one’s limitations – because in some instances, it can save you a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of wasted anger spent cursing at the damn fabric for bunching up in places that were supposed to lay perfectly flat. Here’s the sad, sad story of what went wrong when one overly-assured girl endeavored to take on more than her meager skills could handle … Step One: Making a Pattern
---------------------------> lounge . nourish . host . laze . home. |
I’d like to say that I then
proceeded to take measurements of the seat back, chair bottom, etc., in
order to determine the precise sizes for each piece of fabric I’d be
using, but, frankly, I’d be lying. Nope, me being the lazy home
decorator that I am, I went with my usual eyeballing method, holding up
the fabric to the chair and roughly cutting out chunks of fabric that
seemed approximately the right size and shape.