One Thing Leads to Another.....

This morning I hit a garage sale on the way home and bought this for 4.00..... The last sewing chest like this that I saw at the antique mall was 40.00. I didn't buy that one. How could I pass this one up? The legs were just a little wobbly, but tightening the screws did the trick. When I turned it upside down I found "Poland" printed on the bottom. It was probably meant to be. Walter's grandmother was from Poland and she worked as a seamstress!

Anyway, that got me to thinking about how they used to do things and how we are slowly coming around to the same ideas once again.

One of my favorite sayings has always been the old Pennsylvania Dutch one that goes "Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without." From that, the thought process turned to what I was going to do today in miniature.

I went into the clean workroom and rummaged around a bit. I remembered the French blog from the other day. I knew that I didn't have any perforated paper, but I did have #14 plastic canvas. It's kind of the modern version. I took some out and started cutting. It worked. It was a bit thicker than the paper and had to be cut with an exacto. That lead to trying the same thing on some interlock linen needlepoint canvas that I bought for less than nothing on sale years ago. I didn't like working with it much because it was so rough on my hands. It also worked.


OK. So I proved that it could be done. No further need to mess with that. I did have a lot of the canvas and it seemed ashamed not to do something with it.

Next I dug around and found an old balsa seat form for a chair. Hmmmmmm.......Chair seat? Linen canvas? Logic dictated that I try to make a chair. A beach chair came to mind.

I padded and upholstered the seat. Then I cut a strip of canvas at chair height.(1 1/2") I glued that around the edge of the seat with a seam at the back that overlapped about a quarter of an inch.

I took another piece of canvas and wrapped it around the chair on the back and sides and cut it to size. Then I rounded the back and left the sides in a long strip. First I curled the flaps for arms. They didn't quite look right. I did a sharp fold. That was better. Then I folded it again. This time I formed a triangle on the top and the front stuck out some. I cut that part off even with the inside of the chair arm. It needed an edge. I got out some linen cord and glued a strip around the back and around the front of the arms. I wrapped and glued the same cord around the seat four times. It needed more, so I did the same around the bottom and around the edges of the arms and back. It looked kind of like a resort deck chair.

When I was finished, Spike claimed it as his. Tessie wasn't fast enough for once. He used his growler voice to let her know that he wanted it. Knowing how she does things, I am sure that she will talk him out of it. She turned around to me and crooned......"If we only had a beach......." It was kind of to the tune of "If I only had a brain."

I am NOT going to build a beach. No matter how much she wheedles and whines!


See you tomorrow.