Next I need to apologize for being absent... that's what you do right... after a brief absence from posting, you apologize to your "readers" which I'm purely speculating that I have any that care :) anyhoo... I have been busy... busy being happy lol... which apparently there is a direct correlation between my moods and the craftiness I get into... guess its not a bad thing unless your looking to have a somewhat entertaining blog about craftiness and my surly commentary on the world for which today I have none... but don't fret... I've managed to be somewhat productive... which leads us to this...
With Summer right around the corner (unless you look at the actual weather report which counts snow in the forecast this week) we decided, we meaning my friend "J" (yes the name has been shortened to protect the innocent...) and I, decided that we needed to turn her sad looking porch into a place of relaxation for this summers porch lounging... this is the first year either one of us have had adequate outdoor space to make use of so we were off... We didn't want to spend a ton of money of chairs since most are ridiculously over-priced so to the D.I. (aka thrift store) we went. Ended up finding 2 fairly decent albeit with HIDEOUS cushions chair that had a destiny far greater then the sad life they were leading in the used furniture aisle of the D.I. so we picked out bright cheery summer fabric (yep that is zebra print, duh... "animals prints are so hot right now") and went to town...
This is what we started with... gross... who doesn't love a good flora and fauna print... oh wait... me...
we decided to line the back of the cover with a solid yellow canvas and the front with the zebra, we made the back an envelope closure so the covers could be taken off and cleaned when needed.
After careful measurement (seriously... measure TWICE cut ONCE... it does not work the other way...) we went to town
In order to achieve the envelope closure for the back you make the piece slightly longer then the cushion and cut the piece in half about 15 inches from the top so you have two pieces. give the top of each piece about a 1 inch hem. It helps to have an excellent apprentice (and photographer) iron and pin the hem pre-sewing... makes it soooo much easier... Thanks J!
Here's proof I sew :)
it will look like this when done. Don"t worry about finishing the edges or the other sides it will all be taken care of when you sew the front to the back...
with that step done... I used my specifically designed craft space and by that I mean my living room floor, to lay the front print side up and the back with the finished hems down over-lapping slightly until it was the correct dimensions of the cushion. Pinned the pieces together and once again to the sewing machine...
The best part of the envelope closure is that you don't have to leave a opening in the sides... you can sew all the way around... I like that... its basically like making a super big pillow cover...and we know I'm getting good at that
Once the sewing was done... we stuffed the ugly old cushion into our new cover and ended up with this...
TA-DAH!! we made 2 total for the chairs we bought and then coordinating pillows in the flower print from the top... once we spray paint the frames I'll post complete after pictures... but they turned out so well... I can't wait for the weather to warm up and take to the chairs and enjoy the porch... so stay tuned! xoxo
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