Just got home from spending a wonderful day with my sister (best sister in the entire world), brother-in-law and 5 wonderful nieces who are well into becoming women of God (oh, how I love them). But what does this have to do with slipcovering? I am glad you asked.
It was finally my sister’s turn to get a slipcover. The chair is old. I got it just before it was sent to Goodwill and upholstered it with denim fabric. It was my first upholstery attempt and boy does it show. I have learned so much since then... That was over 6 years ago and to say the chair has been through the mill is an understatement. My sister inherited it a few years ago and has gotten a lot of use from it. Here is what it looked like this morning.
Before
I told you it was rough. I had already started to take the cushion apart when I remembered we had not taken a before picture but you can get and idea of what it looked like. My sister did not want to invest a lot in fabric for the chair is pretty rough. I showed her a couple of "drop cloth" slipcovers I had seen online and she quickly agreed that this is what she wanted. When I say "quickly" I mean quickly. My sister asked me about slipcovering the chair a while back but she had not even started looking for fabric. This week she asked me if I could go ahead and slipcover it. She quickly, I mean quickly decided on drop cloth and bought the drop cloth. I was soooo excited as I have never used drop cloths, I have seen them used in a number of blogs , and have been dying to try them. The day she bought the drop cloth her washer broke... (you need to wash the drop cloth before you sew it). Isn't that like the devil to have her washer break when she most needed it? But my precious sister was not deterred. She bought a washer yesterday, washed the drop cloth and was ready for me first thing this morning as planned. I do not know about anyone else but I think she might be a Zippy in the making. Maybe I am starting to rub off on her.
We started at about 10:30 a.m. I say we because she helped with the piping and the zigzagging. We used a 9' x12' drop cloth 8 oz. weight. There were some blemishes we had to work around but I must say the drop cloth was wonderful to work with. The 8oz drop cloth is not very thick but thick enough to cover over the denim without bleeding through. After washing it the canvas was soft and beautiful. My sister says it reminded her of silk... About 9 hours later it is finished. Only thing left to do is zigzag the edges (which my sister will do probably tomorrow). The one negative about this drop cloth fabric is that it unravels easily so zigzagging or serging it is absolutely necessary. . Well, are you ready for the after?
Without further ado ... Here she is in her new clothes.
After
Isn't she pretty? My sister thinks she looks a lot like a Pottery Barn chair. I tend to agree. Definitely not a chair salvaged from Goodwill 6-7 years ago. What do you think?
I have been working on a number of other projects that I hope to reveal as soon as I can get some decent pictures. Until then consider using drop cloths for your fabric. I highly recommend them. More importantly, you cannot beat the price. The 9' x 12' one my sister bought was only $20 at Lowes. Not bad for about 8 yards of fabric.
What an adventure! One chair in one day!
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