Lesson 2. Don't sew the WRONG side of one piece to the RIGHT side of another... Oops. Can you see the mistake here? See there's no welting on one of the seams... it's hiding INSIDE the piece, not on the outside where it should be.
Lesson 3: When sewing heavy fabric, use heavy duty thread and needles. At the beginning, I was using regular thread and only a size 14 needle (just laziness... I didn't want to go looking for the right stuff... and the thread kept breaking. 5 minutes of searching my supplies and I found the right thread and a size 16 needle. Voila. No more breakage.
Lesson 4. Persevere. Mistakes are a NECESSARY part of the process...after ripping out my wrong/right side SNAFU... I continued and have now finished the two seat cushions. Here's one.
Lesson 5: Do what ya gotta do: The covers look too loose on the cushions ... I've tested a remedy that will tighten them up nicely. I'll add an inch or 2 of batting on the top and bottom of the cushion, making them nicely "overstuffed". (The original cushions didn't start out "overstuffed" at all, so I have to add in some overstuffing). (This is the "before" shot... I'll post the "after" after I get the batting glued to the inner cushion.)
Lesson 6: Dress comfortably while sewing: It's 38 degrees here in Florida this morning, (below 60 in the house), so I'm sewing in my down vest (btw ... this vest is a FROSTLINE kit I made probably 35 years ago ... remember frostline kits?)
Frostline Kits! I still have the down sleeping bag I made in the '70s--somehow I screwed it up at the bottom so it's a foot shorter than standard size (but so am I, so that's OK) and has a lot of extra down packed around the feet (which is also fine with me).
ReplyDeleteI greatly admire your slipcovering prowess. I'm also in awe of you for making the whole thing in white--if I tried to do that it would be covered in bicycle grease and cat hair before it was half done!
Sage advice all! I hate it when I get the wrong sides together. I don't know why it's so easy to make that mistake??
ReplyDeleteThose pillows certainly do look good. It's going to be amazing! Slipcovering is one of those things that I know I could do, but somehow am afraid of tackling. It's all so BIG! Nevertheless - there should be something like it happening here too.
ReplyDeleteYou're doing a amazing job! Slipcovering is a huge project, so I take my hat off to you. I'm due to do some more for our furniture too, but I'm procrastinating...!
ReplyDeleteYou are amazing! I enjoy it a lot of your process to see the chair completely finished.
ReplyDelete