Reupholstering my chairs....

In the midst of finishing my thesis, for which I have less than 6 months left... I started an old endeavour of mine. Reupholstering my old chairs...!

And let me say that this will take a lot more time than antecipated. As usual... For starters, for me, this certainly will  will not be a weekend project, so I have no idea how some bloggers claim that this is so easy or it takes less than an afternoon to do one... well, I have no idea how you manage that, as I haven't even  finished one, so for the four chairs I have to repholster, I have no idea how long it will take...

I barely managed to remove the old fabric from one in one day... Well but at least I did paint it! 

I am working on my piping skills now. And since I wont be reupholstering as it was (I want my chairs to look more 'fancier'), I am adding some piping to them. So I had to self thought myself in piping!

And why have I decided to do this now? Well, its the same old thing, with more stress, more work to do and less time,...crafts and DIY projects to the rescue. I need to release some steam and stress and these projects help me do it. It is something that gives me pleasure and I thoroughly enjoy, and I am doing it to improve our little home... Also, my parents will be visiting us soon and I want my house to look more tidier. These chairs were looking so  dated, they were defenitely needing some makeover.

I am self-thoughting on the reuphosltering art, I downloaded and printed a book that explains the whole process, and adding to that I searched for some videos on youtube that show bits of it. I also observed tons of chairs, and how they were reupholstered (and any excuse works to stop by Laura Ashley store...). I also used this blog post as a guide.

This projects involved both sewing and painting.... So its much more complex than my first attempt when I repholstered my office chair.

But I things is much more enjoyable! And after I might just reupholster my office chair again...

As you can easily imagine, I still have a long way to go! I basically decided where my new piping should go. At least I already removed the old chair fabric, and cut the models from the new fabric. And no, its not the green that the picture shows... thats just an experience before doing it on the chosen fabric!

Here are some photos showing the work done so far:

I still have a long way to go...!

 

My Monday Making: Reversible baby leggins

I don´t think that this little project of mine was listed on my future projects to do list... But my other half had some old t-shirts that was about to give away... and you know that babies are always needing some leggings, so I decided to clean the dust from my sewing machine and make some reversible leggings. Its a way to save money, and upcycle some old t-shirts!

I wont be sharing a full tutorial, first because I am in no position to give any advice in how to better do this, as there are pretty good tutorials out there, I will however share some links of some tutorials that I read and partially followed. I will also explain some steps that I changed, either to make it easier or because well, simply I had no idea what that tutorial was trying to explain!

So this will involve sewing (you would never guess that would you?), 2 old t-shirts, a pair of leggings that your baby uses (so you can copy the template) and lots of time (if you are a beginner sewer as I am)...! I think that overall  this took me at least 6-8 hours altogether. Even though the tutorials that I used are indeed offering a pdf template, you better use a model of leggings that you have at home, mostly because you know that that model fits your baby. I found myself printing and cutting some templates to later on realize that that would never fit my baby!

Basically,  I copied a model of leggings onto some newspaper and cut it. I then cut the t-shirts and the pieces for both leggings following my template. To make the leggings I read this tutorial from made by Rae,  that pretty much explains the basics of how to sew a pair. I wanted to make reversible ones, so I also read this one  and this other one. I made mine a bit simpler I guess, I ended up by having two independent pair of leggings, and sew them together by using a simple hem (wrong sides together). I thought about using a French hem too, but then I decided that a simple hem would work, as it would save some fabric.

When I first finished the first pair, my little human tried it on, so I would know that the finished model would actually fit! Once I knew it would, I made the second one.

And here it is, a pair of reversible leggings ready and at use!

You can see from these pictures that I top-stitched every seam for a more "professional" look.

I also added a back pocket to this side of the leggings. The other one is much simpler... and has lots of mistakes too!

The leggings are not perfect, far from it, but they work perfectly for what I intended... They are wearable for a day out at the park and also to be left at the nursery in case a replacement is needed. And its a great way to upcycle an old  t-shirt!

 What do you think about my reversible leggings?

...Feel free to ask some questions, I would be more than happy if I can be of any help!

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