Amateur Upholstery Hour: Introduction

 

Can someone please stop me from buying fabric?

Please.  My husband begs you.

  I have been completely incapable of finishing anything this past week and a half, even though I have several projects in progress.  This weekend I set out to sew early in the day Saturday and Sunday and was thwarted each time. 

Sidetracked, really. 

What did I do instead?  I organized my fabric.  I know I should be ashamed at how much I've accumulated, but it secretly makes me happy when I walk by.  I cleaned out my closet and did a major cull.  I feel good about that.  Oh yeah, and I bought this couch from the Salvation Army.

 

With the grand intention to reupholster it.....  ack!

Sorry I trailed off there. I'm a little embarrassed that I'm even proposing this.

Now I know you are probably thinking about my last two and half month adventure with upholstery that involved tears, but let me explain: 

 

J and I stopped by the Salvation Army after lunch on Saturday.  We fell in love with this couch but had no real desire to purchase it.  Luckily, J and I have similar taste in furniture and home decor.  We both like antiques and artsy, quirky things.  While we were looking at it, an employee glanced over and said we could have her for half price.  Half price made it a whopping twenty seven dollars.

We couldn't not buy it, right?

 

We think it's from the late 50's/early 60's.  We're calling it mid-century Asian modern, though I'm not sure that label exists.  It's definitely mid-century and it has an Asian flair.  The old fabric is a brocade of some sort.  It weighs about three tons.  I wasn't expecting that when I helped carry it out of the store. But I'm glad because that means it's solidly constructed (solid piece of wood, too).   It's also eight feet long.   The only reason it was so cheap is because it's in pretty rough shape.  There's some damage to the wooden frame.  The white cushion covers look pretty good in these photos, but trust me when I tell you they are not in real life. (Why would anyone want a white couch anyway?)

J used to work doing faux finishes in homes and on furniture.  He can paint just about anything impeccably.  He's excited about repairing the damage to the frame.

As for the upholstery... 

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

I should also mention that school's out for summer after this week.  Hands down the best thing about being a teacher ;)  So, this becomes a major summer project.

Destruction of the old upholstery begins this coming weekend.

The only reason I'm even writing about this now is because blogging will keep me honest about it, whether I succeed or fail.

My weekend in a nutshell.  Instead of finishing that simple cotton a-line skirt I've started, I hatched a plan to upholster a couch.  

How was your weekend?

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 All the photos in this post were taken with my brand spankin' new iPhone.  I've had it for a week and I'm not sure how I ever lived without it.  This one below is just for fun.  Instagram.

 

Hope everyone has a great week!

The Tipi

I posted this project on Burdastyle back in December, but I thought I'd post it on this blog as well because it is the reason I started sewing--- yes, a tipi is the reason. My husband decided that he was going to make a tipi. It was his dream since he was little. He showed up one day with an old sewing machine and some canvas drop cloths. I had previously told him that I learned how to use a sewing machine when I was little. I think I made a couple of pillows and an elastic skirt. So, I sat down and surprisingly remembered a lot about how to sew. It came back to me, with a lot of trial and error, of course. I decided that I was going to sew some of my own projects and I haven't stopped since.


He worked on the tipi for about ten months. He sewed everything himself. I gave the initial lesson on how to use the sewing machine and helped with all the measuring involved. He made it in my old place, which was a tiny condo. The canvas was 30 ft long and my place wasn't even long enough to lay it all out. We took it across the street to a church parking lot to measure and cut. It is enormous. When the tipi is set up, it is 16 feet in diameter. The poles were made by hand as well. He split two by fours down the middle and then used a draw knife to turn them in to a pole. The poles are 20 feet long- two 10 foot pieces connected in the middle by a piece of pvc pipe which he painted to match the poles. The smoke flaps are functional, so we could feasibly build a fire inside (we haven't tried that yet). It's made to take camping, but we haven't done that either. We think it will sleep 6-8 people. The cover folds up and fits in a big Rubbermaid container.


We recently moved in to a new house, but we haven't set up the tipi in the backyard yet. We're scared that might cause a Home Owner's Association meeting that we're not invited to, if you know what I mean.



The book he used was called The Indian Tipi by Reginald and Gladys Laubin. It has plans and patterns to make a historically accurate 19 ft tipi. He sized all the measurements down to 16 ft, so there was a lot of math involved. There is also a book, Tipis by Linda A. Holley that has really nice instructions for lots of different size tipis and explains how to sew strips of canvas together as you go so you’re not pushing 30 ft. of canvas through your machine. The old machine was burned out during the process and then we got a basic Singer. He used heavy duty needles and thread, but just a regular sewing machine.


I think it's pretty impressive! How many people do you know that have a tipi? It's a great reminder of how I began sewing and also, as someone pointed out on Burda, what a useful skill sewing can be. Thanks for reading.