Tessie Made Me Do It....Again!

Before we get to what Tessie made me do, I have a bit of an addition to the other day when I framed Val's watercolor of the Scottish beach. I asked her permission to put up her E bay site where she has some of her paintings for sale. She said that I could, so here it is. http://shop.ebay.co.uk/black*miniatures/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

Now about what Tessie made me do..... Remember the two blue chairs that she found when I was cleaning on Monday? She has been following me around, harping on the subject for the past 48 hours!

I finally gave up and fetched them from the workroom. It seems that she is wildly in love with these monstrosities.

I took the blue material off of the first one and as soon as I did, I remembered why I covered them.

This icky green and white painted, embossed design is underneath. I didn't even remember that. I must have hated it so much that I blocked it out.

I ripped the blue off of the other chair and started from scratch. I had several nice fabrics that I thought would go well with the chairs....Just about anything would make them look better that the originals.

I found these chairs at Big Lots(used to be Pic 'n' Save). I think that I paid a dollar a piece for them. That had to be at least 10 years ago. Now that I see the original, I seem to remember covering them just because I couldn't stand the shiny painted upholstery. I have never used them anywhere.

Tessie kicked the whole pile of fabric that I had chosen over the edge of the table and shoved this under my nose.

She said" These are MY chairs and I want fake zebra skin!"

She loves animals and would never think of using real zebra skin. And besides, it would be out of scale....

Here you can see that I have started to work on the chair. I cut a piece of fabric large enough to cover the whole back and seat in one piece. When you are covering over hard resin like this it is best to use as few pieces as you can. If the arms were upholstered, I would have had to cut those separately. I started at the top and cut the Cupid's bow that goes across the top. I started gluing the fabric on with Fast Grab a section at a time. I could have used the old fabric for a pattern if it hadn't been so stretched. I prefer using the fresh piece and doing the cut as you go method. I seem to get a more accurate fit.

Wherever I had to cut into the fabric to fit around an arm or along an edge, I creased it with my fingernail and used that as a guide. If you aren't sure, you can always use a pencil to mark a guide. You can use this method to cover just about any piece of hard resin or plastic furniture. If you are unsure at first make a pattern with a scrap of muslin or other fabric that you can draw freely on and then transfer the pattern to your good material.

When I got down to the place where the seat and back meet, I had to put a small square of fabric at the corner so that it would be covered when I started the seat. When you bend the fabric it leaves a small bare space that has to be pieced. With a fabric with a busy pattern it is very hard to detect the patch.

Using a very sharp, pointy pair of embroidery scissors, I trimmed as I went. Some of it even got glued down and then trimmed.

When I had it all in place and trimmed correctly, I used unraveled black bunka along all of the raw edges to finish.

Tessie is very proud of her new chairs, however......Once again I am hearing, "Now if only I had a nice big living room in which to display them.....Oh, woe is me!"

Woe is me?? Tessie the drama queen rides again!

See you tomorrow.