You Asked For It!

Not all of you asked for it, but Kat did. I think that she has been taking wheedling lessons from Tessie. She asked so nicely that I decided to make another chair and document it so that if anyone wants to try it, they can. This is going to be a long one. Here we go.

You will need:
Quarter inch thick balsa wood at least 2 1/4" square.

A piece of interlock canvas about 8"x8". Please don't try this with regular canvas. It will ravel and you will be very unhappy.

A piece of bonded batting about 3"X6". I use a double thickness.

One piece of fabric about 4" square to cover the seat.

Some Linen cord to match the canvas. You could substitute something else for this, but the linen cord is available almost anywhere and is not expensive. Use what you have if you have something that you like the looks of. Be sure to use natural material though. It is much easier to work with and glue than synthetics.

You will also need white glue. I used fast grab. You will need sharp scissors, pins and a clothespin or two.

Tessie and Spike are here to help. Just ignore them and maybe they will go away.

The only real pattern that you need is the seat. As you can see from the photo, I cut it from 1/4" balsa. I sanded the corners to a bit rounder shape so that the stiff canvas would curve around with more ease.

Cut a strip of interlock canvas that is 1 1/2"x 8" to go around the bottom as the skirt. Then you will cut another piece that is 3" x 5 1/4" for the arms and back. Cut slits in from the edge 1 3/8". These will be cut straight down from the top to 1 1/4" from the bottom. Trim off all of the little threads that stick out to make a smooth edge on the slit.(see photo) Don't cut anything off of the arms yet. Fold the back in half and use your glue bottle or something similar to draw a curve on each side of the back piece. Cut this off.

Fold down the arms straight across. The make a second fold 7 holes out from the front edge slanting back to nothing at where the arm meets the back. It should look like the photo with my hand holding it.

Next cut two layers of the bonded batting to fit the seat. Use a dab of glue to affix these to the seat. You don't need much. Now lay the seat, batting side down, on the wrong side of the fabric. Put glue on the inside corners of the fabric and a line of glue on the bottom front and back of the wood. Pull the fabric around the front and back and glue it down. Wrap the corners as if you were wrapping a package. The glue should hold the corners in and then you can glue the sides to the back. You should have a smooth top. Don't worry if the sides and bottom aren't perfect. They will be covered by the canvas.

That's the next step. Put glue around the edges of the seat and glue the 8" strip around it, lining up the top edge of the canvas with the top edge of the wood. Run glue down the center back and overlap the canvas. It should be no more than a quarter inch overlap. If it's more, trim it.

Don't let the dog get under the seat while the glue is drying. Tessie might pull off the clothespin and trap him!

After that dries, wrap your back and arms piece around to check for fit. Glue it around making sure that it is centered on the back and the arms are even. Here you see it glued and the arms being trimmed. The closer arm is already trimmed and the far one is waiting to be trimmed. The front edge of the arm should only be trimmed on the outside. Not the top or inside. Now glue the bottom edge and the back edge to the side of the chair and pin in position to dry.


Run a bead of glue around the back edge first. I put on 4 courses of linen thread on the edge and then another 3 about a half inch in all the way around the back.

Then I ran 4 threads around the arms. Next around the top edge of the seat and last around the bottom of the chair. Let it dry. Sit back and enjoy. Maybe tomorrow I will do a matching table.

Your dog sitting on it will do no harm. Most mini dogs don't shed much.

Notice......Tessie got her way in the end. She said that if she sat in the smaller chair no one would be able to see the detail. Whereas Spike would let people see everything.

Still no beach building. I think that I am going to quickly put these in a room box so that she will forget about the sand.

See you tomorrow.