Dining Room Chairs

It's about time I recovered these things! We've all grown weary of searching for those pesky poky grass-slivers...and Cassie was tired of always seeming to get the chair with the broken seat. Sad, I know. So here's the before (the closeup of the seat doesn't show all the fraying from E's shoes constantly on the seat):


I was going between these two fabrics Cassie and I had picked up. J and I liked the red...which has a bit of orange woven into the threads. We have a red chair in the living room with a pattern of orange and black in it so it goes well with it all. It also blends better with the rug whereas we felt the tan made you look at the seat more. Cassie fortunately concurred and I was able to start in :D We had to buy some plywood for the base as the straw seats had only frames. We also bought 1" thick firm foam...wish we would have had an electric knife for cutting...but we made do with a steak knife :P This project took such little time and effort as a whole...I can't believe I put it off for so long!

Ta-daa! The red looks very cherry in these pics...it's not as shiny and is a bit of a duller red than the pics. Between pics 2 and 4 I'd say :P Upholstery is always so hard to photograph...with my camera anyway:





Ahh...no more slivers!

Stenciling and Sewing

Tink Stencil...J actually cut the stencil whilst I worked on stamping more twill tags during a movie. The purple Tink on the tee is E's...the little shrug is for a certain friend of hers ;) It's so easy to paint- it's the stencil that takes time for these projects, so it's quite nice to be able to use it more than once! The flowers are from a stencil I'd already had.




I made us some market totes (one shoulder 'plastic bag' like E's, only bigger...one reg 'plastic bag' and one 'paper bag' but a bit bigger) as we're overflowing with plastic bags here...it's too easy to run across the street to the grocery! Ours are from some old upholstery fabric I'd never used- no pics of those- they're boring old oatmeal colored bags but they're super strong and serve their purpose. They're quite roomy though and E had a hard time carrying them. So I sized the pattern down by 1/4 (good thing I didn't do 1/2 as the 1/4 was perfect for her). I stuck a pocket in there for her as well. I was all set to sell this fabric as she'd outgrown it for anything else but it's quite nice for a bag :)



Aaaand her new suit! I'm quite proud of this...I've heard horrid things about swim fabric, but with a few practice stitches on a scrap it went off without a hitch. Super easy and quite fast! The elastic takes the majority of the time for this...but I tend to putz :) I'm very happy with the fit as well...I cut the elastic down for all the edges and plan to cut it down another inch for the legs on the next suit. I used a triple stitch zigzag for all the elastic application, including the topstitching...I adjusted the tension a wee bit for the topstitching although now I can't remember if I tightened it or loosened it. I'll have to note that on my pattern so I don't forget! :P I decided to line the whole front section instead of the usual panty section...it goes in the same way. I bought a yard of the dot fabric and a yard of a pink checked fabric...since suits take so little, I plan to make a pink version of this for swim lessons, and then a 2pc for summer a bit later on. I'd gotten some of the nice matching green terry at the same time and plan to make a little hoodie and capri set for the beach as well...but I have some other things to catch up on first!

Our Favorite Place

Well first of all- thanks SO MUCH to Dad for all his help with our shelving and desks and 'deals' :) I forget if it was Mom or Cassie who had found an ad on Craigslist for these shelves- a Steve and Barry's was closing and was getting rid of everything-fixtures included. We called and 'reserved' some units for Cassie and I (but mostly me) and Alex was kind enough to borrow us all his truck (which Dad fixed up with some cow racks and a boat trailer! Quite a sight we were!). Cassie and Dad and I all drove up to get the things...I won't go into the whole affair but needless to say there were no shelves set aside. ARRGH!! I'm usually the type to stew silently but this time I let the guy have it...when we go to all the trouble and then get family involved in the debacle! Urggh!!

Long story short there were some other shelves available still which Dad said we could cut down if we needed...the guy discounted them steeply knowing his life was at risk and wanting to salvage the situation >:Z So the cubby you'll see in the closet with the knits...that is the size of 1 cubby system- which were $5 each. You can't buy wood for that, really. They are 23" deep so nice and roomy...these ones had 5 little cubbies across and 6 down...we cut out boards and whatnot in between and came up with what you see there. The whole tall shelving system (we cut down from 10ft to about 8.5) was another $5 which included the 4 shelves you see.

The skinny cubbies next to the large unit are from one of the big cubbies...we split it into two sections...cutting and repasting the thing together. Made for a few laughs but I'm so pleased with it all put together and it's perfect in our apt!

The large desk you see of mine was a half circle...we got two of them for a total of $15...one is still in the barn...this one we shaved off 2 cubbies on one end to trim it down a bit so I could get behind the thing in the room...it's absolutely perfect for storing all our art supplies and homeschool books we're currently using along with sewing books and the like.

E's desk Dad (Papa) made for her a few years back and she adores it...we went to the cabin up north once over a weekend and she got back and spent a whole morning at her desk sketching and doodling and coloring and the like. She missed it!

We used one of the cubbies in our other room as a TV stand etc...we had plans to make a shoe cubby as well but for the time being we shoved the other units in the barn to worry about at a later date.

Anyhow- thanks so much Dad for all your help...we appreciate it! Love you! :)

Enjoy the slideshow...I think I captured the whole 'before-after' effect with the photos...the before I'm pretty sure I took in the evening so lots of drab lighting there, lol :)

Btw: if the slideshow keeps 'loading' and doesn't show up...click on it and it should pop out and bring you to it.

Lovely

I love this pic of my sister and her dd-wanted to share! :) We took some photos almost a year ago and I've edited a few here and there and finally got to this one which was one of my favorites of the bunch.


I'll be posting a slideshow of the sewing/homeschool room in a bit as well :)