I am not Wonder Woman, Super Woman, or even Super Mom (Deployment Projects #122- #133)

I have come to the sobering conclusion this week that I am not Wonder Woman, or Super Woman and I’m pretty sure I’m not even making the cut for Super Mom this week!!  Don’t get me wrong, we are all still surviving - - we have even had some balanced meals this week (they were at a restaurant, not homemade!), the kids are clean (once we may have counted pool time as bath time), the house is still standing (lets just leave it at that and not go into whether it is clean or not).  But it has just been one of those weeks.  You know the kind where you are supposed to be in ten different places all at the same time, and every time you try running out the door, you are forgetting something essential for the day.  I feel like I have made a thousand U-turns at the entrance to our subdivision this week, because I keep forgetting things.  At least I haven’t forgotten either of the children….yet!  The biggest gut-kicker of the week has been my sewing machine breaking down…yet again…the DAY AFTER my warranty ran out.  Now, don’t think of me as shallow - - the world does not revolve around my sewing machine - - but it was just the straw that broke this poor, I-have-no-sanity-left, could-anything-else-go-wrong, sleep-deprived, is-the-school-year-over-yet-because-I’m-not-sure-I-can-teach-another-day, deployed-momma’s back!!

I have actually refrained from posting for a week because I have been so MAD at the sewing machine company and the poor customer service, that I knew if I got on here I was not going to be nice!  So I will just say that I will not be buying another sewing machine from this company and if you are in the market for a sewing machine you may email me and I will suggest some brands that seem to have better customer service and a better track record for not breaking down!!   Even Ethel decided that she didn’t want to work this week!

But, I can show you what I was able to make before all the sewing machines in my house decided to take their summer break!

First up - - remember the Miss America to Hello Beautiful re-upholstery project from last week?  Well, this week I re-upholstered the ottoman that goes with it.

Before

After

I also made two pillows for the bed in the room that the chair and ottoman are going into.  I love the little knife edge pleat around these pillows.  Such a custom, tailored look and a nice break from cording!!

I also made two more “Always” and “Forever” pillows for this room.  If you want to make your own - - you can check out my tutorial on that here.  These two pillows are similar to the last two that I made, except that the pleats are smaller/tighter.  That is the joy of the ruffler attachment, just by adjusting your stitch length and the number of stitched you want between ruffles, you can change the look.

These two little mini pillows will go in the room also!

Look at these fabulous fabrics I got to work with this week.  I made cushion covers for outdoor wicker furniture - - two chairs and one long couch cushion.  These are just the covers without the foam in them yet, so you just have to use your imagination until my friend sends me a picture of it all put together!!

 

Oh, and one custom Father’s Day pillow!!

Goodbye Miss America - - Hello Beautiful!!! (Deployment Project #121)

There truly wasn’t anything overly wrong with this chair before I re-upholstered it.  The fabric was in great condition.  And, for having a white background, it was also very clean.  In fact, this is the first chair that I have ever re-upholstered that I didn’t find popcorn in the chair when I took the old fabric off!!

The only thing wrong with this chair was her style.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a very patriotic lady, and so is my friend who is the proud owner of this chair.  But she was ready for a change.   We headed over to Joann's and perused their selection of fabrics - - we finally decided on this fabulous blue and cream fretwork fabric. 

I absolutely loved working with this fabric!  It was the perfect weight, had the perfect amount of stretch, and it looks fabulous on the chair!  It is “Lovely Lattice” by Waverly.

 

  

 

“Dear Jesus, Please make the time go by quickly.” Breaking 100 in the Deployement Project #’s!!

Along with their other requests and praises, my kids pray this every night before they go to bed.  They want the time until Daddy comes back home to go quickly.  I couldn’t agree more, but I do have to say that I believe God is answering their prayers!  I tell you what, the time is flying - - and that is a good thing, but I’m not sure if I can keep up!!  I did not even realize that my last post was two weeks ago!  Yikes!!

Thank goodness you all are patient, kind and loving readers!!  It is not for a lack of projects for me to post about, that is for sure!!  I have been sooooooooooo busy with projects, I feel like I have about a 100 to post (ok, maybe not 100 that might be an exaggeration) but actually finding the time to post seems to be the problem!!  Of course, tonight I am taking a project break while I  sit here writing a  post and  watching the Survivor Finale at the same time!!  Multi-tasking at it’s best.

So, here’s a Deployment Project Update:  (sorry, I didn’t take pictures of it all - - it’s that whole time management thing!!)

Since I last posted, I have made 14 pillows

 

Embroidered 4 more sheets

My mantra for now!  Keep calm and carry on!

Sewed 3 dresses and 1 shirt

Painted 2 more Station Signs

Re-upholstered 2 couch cushions

Sewed 3 camera straps

and Re-upholstered this sweet bench.

 

And - - through all of that I have taught school ( we are almost finished for the year - - wooohooooo!!!), kept the house fairly well maintained,  made it to they gym (although not as much as I would have like to!)  mowed the lawn (until the mower died, then I just gave up on that one!), chauffeured the kids back and forth to swimming, fencing, art lessons, guitar lessons,Awana,  and birthday parties, had my Mom and Dad visit for a long weekend to celebrate my birthday and Mother’s Day, had a great friend come this weekend and give me some “Design Intervention,”  picked up some sweet deals on craigslist (can’t wait to share those with you!) - - oh, and I even fed the kids a few well-rounded healthy meals! 

Whew!  See why there hasn’t been any posts lately?  That takes my Deployment count to 111!!!

I could sit and beat myself up about not posting as often as I would like, but I had a sweet new blogger friend, Linda, remind me in an email this week, “Looking forward to your next blog, but remember that your kids come first and your blog groupies understand that so we wait patiently.”    Thanks Linda!

Hopefully there will be more posts, more often, but I can’t promise that.   I can promise you that I do have some fabulous projects that I am currently working on and eventually I will post about them!! 

A few Simple Changes

I wanted to take another look at the Drop cloth chair re-upholstery and point out some of the things that I changed while re-upholstering this chair.  Design changes that make the re-upholstery job quicker and easier!

If you take a closer look at the arms of this chair before shot - - you can see that they have been sewn together without cording.

 

When I re-upholstered this, I found it was much easier to add cording to both sides of the arm. 

 

By adding cording to both sides of the arm – that allowed me to easily use curve-ease to put the sides of the chair on.

On the original chair, they used upholstery tacks to attach the sides – this a decorative way of adding details, but it is:

A. not the look I was going for

B.  not easy to do at all!!

If you need a tutorial to help you with curve-ease, you can visit mine here.

 

By using curve-ease, you can see that I got a very smooth finished side that shows of the shapely curves of the chair!!

 

Just a couple of little changes, that made my re-upholstery job much easier, and added new details and definition to the chair.  As you do more re-upholstery projects, you will become more confident in knowing what things you can change around in your projects!!  I try to use curve-ease whenever possible because it makes the job so much easier and the finished look is so much nicer looking!

Introducing Ethel and Drop Cloth Chair Re-upholstery (Deployment Project #76)

Let me introduce you to my newest family member… Ethel.

After my new (less than one year old) very expensive embroidery/sewing machine broke down for the third time in year that I have had it.  I knew something had to change.  That was 2 months ago and my machine is still in the shop getting fixed - - actually, it got sent back to the factory, but is STILL not fixed.  After talking with a representative from my sewing machine company, I found out that I was actually killing my machine with all the re-upholstery stuff I was doing on it.  Going  through up to 10 layers of thick fabric actually broke the feed dog spring on my machine - - not a common piece to break!  He suggested that I find an old 1950’s Singer machine and use that for my re-upholstery projects.

I found Ethel on Craigslist a few weeks back.  She’s simple, but she is a workhorse!  She will plow through anything and just keep right on going - - no little annoying beeps or error messages. 

There is something enduring about her. 

Her simplicity. 

Her history.

As I’m using her, I wonder about her past.  Who used to own her?  What did they make with her?  Has some mother sat at her and made dresses for her little girl?  Has a grandmother sat at her and made a quilt for a newborn baby?  Has a mother and daughter worked at it together to make a wedding gown?

Let me just throw in here that if you are only doing one re-upholstery project, or even two, you have nothing to fear - - you are not going to break your machine.  I do one to two re-upholstery projects a week - - that much pounding on a machine is just too much!!

So, let me show you the first project that Ethel has completed.

This is the chair I was telling you about yesterday.   This chair is going in a little boys’ room.  My friend wanted a vintage look that would be durable for two toddlers!!  She also did not want to spend a lot of money on the fabric for the chair.  I ended up using drop cloths to re-upholster it.

I had never used drop cloths, but of course I have read about them everywhere on blog world.   I decided to try it out.   I would say that all in all, it was easy to work with - - maybe a bit more difficult to work with than a heavier weight upholstery fabric - - but for a loose, informal look I think it is fantastic.  I did wash the drop cloth before I used it - -they stink something fierce straight out of the package!!

This chair has quite the history.  My friend bought it when they were stationed in Germany.  Brought it to DC when they moved here,  and now, I’m re-upholstering it before they move back to Germany!

Look at the before fabric - - ugh!  Time for a make-over!

When I got the fabric off, I realized that this chair had been re-upholstered once.  There was still some of the original fabric on the chair.  It was originally upholstered in a chartreuse green silk.  I can only imagine that with all her fun curves and details, she was one fancy lady!!