I've been meaning to get this up for a while and am excited that I am posting my very first step-by-step tutorial!!! (I guess the excitement is over the fact that I had an original idea I could post instructions for and not have to link to someone else's blog for the instructions :) )
Re-upholstering a child's chair
A.R. had a child's rocking chair given to her many yrs. ago as a gift. It has acquired many stains over the yrs. and since JD is more the right size for it now than she is, I decided to turn it into a little boys rocking chair. I purchased some inexpensive material from walmart and my dear husband bought me a staple gun (ahh...the power) and a project was born....
First I made a mental note of where all the folds and pleats were in the chair and noted where they stapled the fabric. Then I had to rip all the old material off the chair without damaging the foam cushioning or the individual pieces since they become your pattern pieces for the new fabric (you will be amazed at how many staples you pull out and continue to find days later even after careful vaccuuming...)
Lay out the individual pieces you've taken off the chair and lay them on top of your new fabric. (I chose a fabric that had no real rhyme or reason when it came to the pattern to make it easier, but if using a striped fabric you will want to make sure that the stripes are running the right way when you trace your new pattern pieces. )
I marked all the pattern pieces to keep track of what piece went where when it came time to cover the chair, and simply traced all the patterns using disappearing ink.
Once all the pieces were cut I started fitting the fabric around the chair. You will need to pull very tight when you staple, the fabric will stretch...the seat of my chair is already buckling a bit because I could not pull the material tight enough when I stapled. Keep all your pleats and folds as close to it's original pattern and staple the heck out of it...After all the pieces had been stapled we went around the chair with a mallet and tapped on the staples to make sure there were no sharp points sticking out from the staples.
The chair looked cute, but I though it was missing something still. I cut out a round piece of scrap leather and used dark T-shirt iron on transfer sheets to print out a yankees emblem (please no comments about the yankees: my husband is from upstate NY and we made a deal...he gets JD as a Yankees fan and I can have AR as a Phillies fan. So I'm merely playing by our rules here ) I stitched the patch onto the back of the seat before stapling it down and was very pleased with the results...
So here you have it...JD's birthday present from mommy and daddy and my very first tutorial hooray!
Happy Crafting!
