Decorating with Fabric

Since I haven’t had any quilts to work on lately, I’ve been busy with other fabric-related things…  My Mother-in-Law passed away in October, and we have been very busy clearing out her house.  My husband doesn’t “get” my knack for feeling sorry for left-outs, which includes inanimate objects.  This was one such object.  I didn’t think to take a “before” picture, so in this photo, I put the old fabric on it and took a picture.



After I stripped it of the fabric, I was surprised to find caning in the back of the chair.  It was obvious to me that the wood used for the back of the chair was Quarter-Sawn (or Tiger Eye) Oak, which was popular back in the Victorian Era.  When I took the fabric off, I also noticed a sticker that reads “Murphy Chair Company – Detroit, Michigan.”  I googled it and found that it was a company in Detroit around 1900 so that puts a date on it - woah!  Anyhow, after looking at several chairs like this, I imagine it had a needlepoint seat covering.  I was giving this to our daughter, though, and I already had fabric to go with her decorating taste, so I used that.



We also inherited 3 rocking chairs.  One of them was covered with orange fabric, which is great for Autumn when we inherited it, but didn’t go with any body’s home decor.




I have always wanted to reupholster a chair, so I got the opportunity to do just that with this chair.  Here’s what it looks like now.  I don’t normally like to paint over wood unless it is butt ugly.  This wood did nothing for the chair, so I painted it black and then distressed it to expose parts of the wood.



Keeping the tradition of showing the back of a quilt, here is the back of the chair.



This, too, is going to my daughter’s house.  We already had 1 rocking chair inside and 2 on the porch, so now with the other 2 rocking chairs that we inherited, we have 5 rocking chairs.  We do not need this to make it 6.

I found that I really liked re-covering these chairs and can imagine them with lots of colorful fabrics and even covered with patchwork blocks – I can see myself reupholstering more chairs in my future.

I have a list of goals for 2014, but I find that my ADD interferes a lot and my mind is constantly dreaming up something new that needs to get done right now!  That’s how this next project happened.  I knew I was going to get a customer quilt on Friday, so I cleaned my Quilting Studio on Tuesday.  Cleaning my studio led to me taking everything off my wooden counter for a good wipe-down.  When I originally built this counter (as a workplace and cutting counter), I had planned on covering it with laminate or staining the wood or doing something to cover the wood.  Cleaning it reminded me that I’d never gotten around to “finishing” that project.  You can see a “before” picture in a post I wrote on my quilting blog here.  I pulled some fabric out of my stash (a bolt that had never been opened!)  that looked like rocks.  Imagine my surprise when I opened up the bolt of fabric and laid it out on the counter top.  I smiled and thought this was kismet.  Rays of light shown down from the heavens and the angels sang… and my smile “sang” too!




Doesn’t it look like granite?  First, I laid the fabric down on the counter top.  Then I Mod-Podged a section at a time, Mod Podging the wood underneath the fabric and then making sure that was stuck down with no bubbles in between, I Mod Podged on top of the fabric.  Mod Podge is supposed to act as a glue and a sealer.  I then went around the edges and cut off the excess fabric with an Exacto knife.  This shot was taken while it was fresh on the counter top and still wet, so that’s why you see streaks or cloudiness in areas.  The Mod Podge dries clear.  Here’s a close-up.



I have more projects in the works telling me I need to add them to my never-ending list  swimming around in my head, but first I need to work on a customer quilt.  I am so looking forward to being back at my quilting machine!

Organization and Goals

It's time to get ready for a new year. Being organized always seems to clear my mind and makes me feel more light-hearted. Making a "To Do" list and writing down my goals puts me in action and gets me off my duff so I can check off those "to do" items on my lists. I've been needing a workspace for my quilting business; some place for my computer, printer, forms, quilting samples, etc. So, my Christmas present to myself was to build a computer armoire that I could close to hide the messes I tend to make when I do paperwork.

Ana White is my new hero, who I secretly aspire to be like.  She makes building furniture, etc. look so easy, and it is when you follow her plans!  She says the basic premise with most furniture is that you first need to build a box.  I found plans for a Toy/TV armoire here.  I used the plans for the basic box surround and then added stuff to make it an armoire for my computer (my office in a box).  Here is what the box looks like closed.  I used bead board for the doors and added dentil and decorative molding around the top.

 This is before I attached the doors.  I used pegboard for the backing for 2 reasons; first, I wanted the electronics to have ventilation and secondly, I might want to hang stuff on some pegs.  You can see my green bag down in the lower right - that is where I keep my quilting samples for customers to look at.  The blue storage clip board holds my forms, flyers, and mileage chart.  The keyboard slides out, and I have a narrow "cubby" below it to put extra papers, etc. that I tend to collect.  There are drawers on either side of the keyboard slide.  I still need to cut some holes in them for pulls.  I had decorative pulls on them, but the doors wouldn't shut as the drawer pulls stuck out too far.

 

This was my first major furniture project, so I am very happy with the results.  I am sure I've got ADD, because I ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have ideas swimming around in my head.  Take my closet, for example.  When I get busy, my "areas" tend to get messy because I don't have time to deal with them and keep them clean.  I wish I had taken a "before" picture of my closet, because yesterday I decided that enough was enough.  This has been bugging me since we moved into this house back in 2009.  I've had this built-in shelving in my cabinet with about 4 narrow shelves on it.  There's plenty of room to stack stuff in there, but I've got a lot of shoes, and I needed a place to put them.  Up until yesterday, I was basically just throwing my shoes into my closet.  They lay where ever they landed.  And, I would trip over them every time I went into my closet to get stuff.  <sigh>  :\

Well, I don't know what took me so long to think of this.  I got a Kreg shelf pin jig about a month ago.  I've been planning on making bookshelves for my husband and also a linen closet for our bathroom.  Oh, one thing I need to clarify here... my husband is not a handyman.  At.  ALL.  In fact, I think he's afraid of tools and any kind of handy work.  He's a great cook, though, and I've been encouraging him to cook (more and more!).  But, I cannot ask him for any help what so ever, because the answer will be, "No."  So, that armoire up above?  Yep, I made that all by myself.  It is one heavy piece of furniture, too!  But, it's solid!  

But, back to my closet (ADD invasion)... I had some MDF board that would fit the depth of the closet shelving.  And, I had a bunch of shelf pins.  So, yesterday, I took my handy shelf pin jig and drilled holes in the sides of the shelves and added shelving I had cut from the MDF board.  I am still in awe at how my shoes fit in my closet now compared to before.  I feel like I now own one of those closets that I only see on TV shows.  Happy me!  

 

Now that I've cleared the clutter in my physical life, I feel like I am ready to clear the clutter in my mental life... next step is to set some goals for 2014.  How about you?