Overly Ambitious

A couple of weeks ago, for no apparent reason, I got really ambitious and straight up reupholstered a whole chair.  Seriously.

As soon I saw the Aviary fabric by Thomas Paul several months back, I was enamored.

Source: Thomas Paul

After thinking on it for awhile, I bought 3 yards in yellow with the intention of one day building up the courage to try my hand at recovering our Ikea Tullsta chair.

For some unknown reason, I built that courage up about 5 years sooner than I had anticipated and dove right in one Saturday morning. 

Because the fabric was was definitely an investment, I wanted to make sure I did it right the first time, so I began by making a pattern out of some extra fabric I had around.  In order to make the pattern pieces, I pinned the fabric to the chair so that I could mark the seams in the chair's covering.

Once I had made the seam markings and cut the pieces out with seam allowances, I pinned them together for a test run on the chair. 

Once I was satisfied with how my test run fit, I dove right in and cut the pieces out of the Aviary fabric, paying attention to the placement of the fabric pattern on each piece of the chair covering.

After sewing together the pieces for the inside and the outside of the chair, I fit them on the chair wrong side out so that I could pin them together to achieve a tight covering.

Once the cover was made, I pulled it tight and stapled it to the bottom.  I did struggle with getting it to stay tight in the seat.  As far as I could tell, there was no solid surface in the seat of the chair for the staples to grab onto, so the staples came right out when I tried to get a tight fit.  Although I haven't photographed it (perhaps out of shame), I ended up using curved quilting pins to tightly secure the covering to the existing cover.  I was able to get away with this solution because the chair's removable cushion covers all of this up. 

Once I had made the cushion cover, the chair was complete, and it was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L (at least to me!)!   My back has been hurting for weeks since undertaking this project, but I'm more than happy with the result.  Fingers crossed that it holds up over time...

I think Pete likes it, too...

My Favorite Warm Weather Consumables

As the season to turns to Spring and then Summer, there are a few consumables that really warm my heart and remind me that the weather is getting warmer. 

The first among my warm weather favorites is Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager.  It's so delicious and refreshing.

The next on my list is Martha Stewart's Summer Vegetable and Chicken Hash.  It's supposed to be a breakfast food, but I eat it for lunch and dinner too.  It's so good.  So.  Good.

...and finally, Martha Stewart's Strawberry Shortcake Cookies may be just about my favorite summertime dessert. 

Goodbye

A week ago today, my grandmother passed away.  She was 89.  She'd lived a good, long, full life, and she was ready to go. ...none of which seems to make it hurt any less, but I'm working on it nonetheless.

It seems appropriate to mention it here, because Granny was really the reason I started sewing.  She was an awesome quilter and a pretty prolific embroiderer.  She loved the chain stitch and french knots (Ironically, I started embroidering a pillow cover with french knots last Monday.).  She was a great Southern cook and just about the most selfless person I've ever met.

I'm coping, but I'm really going to miss her...

Trendy Bride

At least one source tells me that a wedding trend in 2010 is mismatched bridesmaids dresses.  I guess that means that I'm a trendy bride, because this is precisely the route I'm going.

When approaching the question of bridemaid attire, there were several things that I considered.

1--Bridesmaids dresses that are explicitly bridesmaids dresses tend to be really expensive.  I mean, even the cheapest ones are usually at least $100+, and I personally don't normally drop a hundred plus bucks on dresses (I didn't even spend $100 on my wedding dress!).  And those that are on the more affordable side to also be on the awful side...whether it be the fabric, the style, or the fit. 

2--My bridemaids come in all shapes, sizes, and personal styles.  I honestly cannot imagine what kind of dress I could choose that would fit each of them either literally or figuratively.

3--My wedding will be fairly casual.

4--There's just something that creeps me out a little about a group of adult women all wearing the same outfit.

These considerations led me to one conclusion--mismatched dresses.

So, I've told my bridesmaids to buy a knee length blue dress.  Seriously, that's all I told them.  This means that I don't care what color blue, what style, what material, what jewelry, what shoes, what hair style.  I'm actually extremely excited to see what each of my awesome bridesmaids will choose. 

Here's a taste of the inspiration that has reassured me that I've made the right decision: 

My Cliché Spring

I was oh-so-lucky to have yesterday off.  The weather was gorgeous--highs in the low 80s--and the cherry blossoms were at their peak for the National Cherry Blossom Festival.  This is my fifth Spring in D.C. (which actually strikes me as completely AMAZING), and I've only ever checked out the cherry blossom trees once before, so yesterday was the perfect opportunity to enjoy the weather and avoid the heightened crowd of the weekend by taking a stroll around the Tidal Basin. 

To make the experience as cliche as I could, I tried to snap some vaguely artistic shots of the sights.  Despite the fact that you could probably find any given one of these shots by doing a simple Google Image search (in fact, Michael informed me that a nearly identical shot of one of my photos can be found on DCist), I assure you that I took them myself.

Seriously though, I LOVE SPRING!