Sunday, February 16, 2014

loveseat completed!

after two days of pain-staking [literally] hand sewing, the cushions are recovered!  and i discovered what thimbles are for ...and that i own a total of zero.

friday was a snow day so my two classes, lab, and test were cancelled!  i also had requested the day off of work, so i slept in til 9 and then a friend came over for her first sewing lesson.  in between learning teaching the functions of her fancy-pants computerized sewing machine, i laid out the ~3 yards of fabric to recover the horrid stripey cushions of my work in process.  frank helped.  clearly.
i flopped the pillows around for awhile, determined i did in fact have enough fabric to recover 4 pillows, and then set about making a semi-pattern to follow.  having never covered 3-dimensional pillows before, i only had an inkling of how it *should* work.  but really... rectangles.  cake.   thankfully, microsuede is fray-free so i estimated a half inch seam allowance and refrained from busting out the serger. 
after an hour [or two] of cutting and measuring, i finally started sewing my cushions.  as with the ikea chair cover i did this fall, i realized ... i'm never going to unzip and wash cushion covers.  so no need to spend days installing terrible looking zippers!  but since the cushions are quite large, i opted to hand sew the edges shut rather than cram the edge under my sewing machine.  possibly a huge mistake on my part.
the sad remainders of a "country chic" couch.  NOT saved for future sewing projects.  even the fabric hoarder in me couldnt justify that.
mmm look at that only slightly wonky rounded edge.  not bad eh?
aaand then i spent 1 episode of ripper street, 3 episodes of supernatural, and 1.5 episodes of chuck hand sewing this shit together.  I HATE HAND SEWING and i am terribly inconsistent at it.  and it turns out since upholstery fabric is somewhat thick, it takes a surprising amount of force to get a needle through.  thus, my revelation of thimbles.  and my fruitless search for one up in my sewing room.  but pliers... and several very painful fingertips [only slightly bloody] later, DONE.  thank god.

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