Friday, August 24, 2012

The Story of a Chair

Hello lovely people! How are you today? I'm alright, I have a bit of a tension headache, but I bet if I actually take something for it it'll go away. How's your weather? Here in my part of Kansas the sky has been a gray slate, threatening to rain since this morning. I took the laundry off the line because when I went to get a freshly washed Daisy Bear I was sprinkled on a bit and I didn't want to rush around getting hit with big raindrops trying to get towels and sheets down had it come to actual rain. Rain. *sigh* How you are sorely missed. Enough sucking wind, as my dad would say, which means quit scoffing if you didn't guess, I have things to show you!


Back in Winter sometime, my step-dad's sister gave Amelia this little rocking chair. We weren't too thrilled about it because we really didn't have anywhere to put it. It roamed around the living room for awhile before being placed in Amelia's room. She loved the chair! Loved to sit in it and watch Wild Kratts in her room and eat her morning fruit. I was just ok about it. It was heavy, but really solid, and outdated. Not very feminine at all. But for awhile it stayed.


Then after Alyssa reached a stage where she wasn't sleeping all day or eating every 30 minutes to an hour, I got tired of being inside by myself with the girls while Elliott worked on the shed outside. So I said, "Elliott, I'm going to refinish Amelia's chair."
"Do it," He said.
So I did.
He told me I would want to sand it before I painted it. Good call man. So I sanded it. Then I kilzed it, twice, then I painted it green, two coats. The same green that's in Amelia's room. I was going to use the purple we painted Alyssa's room but Elliott forgot he had used all of it. Then I picked out my fabric bundle to match and took measurements. But as you can see, I totally blew it and didn't take any pictures. And I ended up scraping the measurements too because they were wrong! Well, maybe they were right but I threw a wrench in my plans and used foam cushions instead of a layer of batting like I planned. Which I'm glad I did.


I did the seat first and it took forever! I had to sew things together, place on seat and measure, sew more on, measure. Then finally, hot glued the fabric over the cushion and under the seat.


Then today, when the girls were napping, I finished the back. That didn't take near as long as the seat did.


Which was good, but I still burnt my fingers just as many times and got hot glue on my pants. Oh well, at least it's done!


Overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out. And before I even started with the fabric I told Elliott I'd like to find a similar rocker to do the same thing for Alyssa. Granted, she won't be sitting in it anytime soon, but it doesn't hurt to look because you'll never know when you'll get lucky and find what you're looking for.


When I called Amelia out to see it she said, "whoa! That's so pretty!" and when I asked if she liked it, she said, "yeah, I do!"


She sat in it, touched the fabric, and rocked in it. Then she ran off to play with other things. After I get her room in order I'll be putting this back into it's rightful spot. And out of my craft area in the basement! There isn't much room in the corner as it is, butt was really hard to move around with the chair there.


That's about all I have for today, I have some other things to share, but I'll be back for that later. The chair is enough for now.

1 comment:

  1. I love it! Reminds me, I've been wanting to make some covers for my dining room chairs. I know the cushion part is going to be interesting, because these little arms connect the seat to the back so I have to cut out for those. Probably too much for a girl who can't sew! Ha!

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