The Skinny

It's Saturday night, this week has been insane. I've been in and out of town, I started a new business, I lost $50.00 and then figured out that doing business sometimes doesn't couple well with ethical practices. That made me sad. 

On a happier note...this was a fun, fun day. Reason #1...today was the 30 day mark of my whole campaign against Rae becoming a chunky-butt which means I had $30.00 in my motivational jar <awkward wave> yes, in case you missed that post, I have a motivational jar. This naturally led to a thrift store run and today I got to go with my darling sister-in-law, Bethany. Let me tell you some things about Bethany...

1. She is cute, seriously cute. She wears a ballerina bun like a boss.

2. She is brave, she lets me cut her bangs.

3. She is the mommy to a sweet little boy (he's seriously cute too)  

4. She has another little munchkin on the way. Yes. This is Bethany's blog 

This meant that some maternity clothes shopping was in order, to anyone following me on Pinterest -  this explains the plethora of maternity pins. Pregnant ladies can pull off some cute stuff.

Anyway, we had a blast finding a fall wardrobe conducive to the ever expanding bun in Bethany's oven. Since it might be bordering on creepy to share photos of someone else's clothes on my blog I decided to stick with my own...suffice to say that Bethany got some ridiculously cute things.

Note: These images are painfully blurry, it's sad.   

INC long sleeved shirt $3.95 >>> retail $35.99 

Sonoma Cardigan $4.00 >>> retail $36.00 

Forever 21 Ruffle Tank $2.92 >>> retail $19.00

Forever 21 Red Cardigan $4.95 >>> retail $22.80

Gap Jeans $4.95

(Got really excited about these...jeans are never long enough for me and I typically have that awkward ankle peep show thing going when I take a seat, I actually had to hem these. Amen.) 

>>> Retail $69.95

White House Black Market Skinny Jeans $4.50 >>> Retail $69.95

These didn't get a full length picture because they're awfully long. More on these farther down.... 

Total Savings....$228.42

Moment of silence. 

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I promised a DIY last post, hopefully one a bit easier to follow than the last installment of the wing-back chair redo. I have a few things cooking but the easiest one is what I'll be sharing tonight...

I have been looking for maroon or red skinny jeans literally for months and months and months. Remember that time I wrote that if you hold off buying and settling for something what you want will eventually turn up? Yeah. Sometimes that doesn't happen. I cannot find these things, so I resorted to tweaking what I have.

I started off with a pair of normal boot cut medium wash jeans, and proceeded to bleach the living tar out of them. This is after one round of bleach...

I used a one to one ratio of gallons of water to cups of bleach. Clear as mud?

I left the jeans in for hours on end...and after each round I washed the jeans with some detergent and then put 'em back in for another go.

Submerged jeans chilling in a large Rubbermaid tub. I'm wondering if the paint stains on the sides of the tub had anything to do with uneven bleaching? Maybe that's a stretch.

This is what I got after about 16 hours of bleaching

It's sort of a yellowed white, I was happy with it and since I planned to dye it dark I wasn't worried.
Next step, dye the suckers. I also happened to dye the palms of my hands a lovely scarlet color,  gloves would be a good idea.

This stuff is actually not the color I used, I'm using this dye on another pair of jeans. The dye color I used was Wine and it ended up giving me more of a dark pink jean. I wasn't thrilled since I really really wanted a deep maroon, but since it was round one I'll go with it. The dye also didn't take in a few spots as evenly as I wanted it to. Life is a learning process, I'm cool with it. I considered following the instructions on the bottle but ended up leaving the jeans to soak in the dye overnight since I wanted to color to be very  dark. 

So in this picture you can sort of see the color I ended up with, what i'd like for you to lock onto though - is the fact that these jeans have been sewn into skinnies. WOOT! The black jeans from White House Black Market went through the same process.

The only thing you have to do to accomplish this, is to lay your favorite pair of skinnies on top of the larger jeans and stencil and sew your way to pegged legs, easy peasy. 

In this picture, you can see the way the jeans didn't take the dye evenly (even with a lot of stirring and babysitting).

Up at the top you can see the uneven dye job, but y'know what? I don't mind it, it adds character. Can you tell I'm a glass half-full kinda girl? Yes. Sometimes. 

The black skinny jeans I mentioned were gray when I bought them, and even though I liked them I was really looking for some black pants. For some reason I had never considered the fact that I'm allowed to dye my clothes, it struck me as something that was probably against the rules. Not so! The black dye worked out great and the process started me thinking about all of my faded jeans that could use a little freshening up, pretty sure the blue dye would do the trick. 

I have one more thing to add...

This is my grandfather, also known as Papa Jack. He was a band director and obviously had quite a fashion sense. I come by it honestly. Would you please get a load of those pants? You're welcome.

xoxo, 

Rachael 

Wing-Back Chair Abridged Part 2

I am a full week behind schedule. I have no pictures for this post because I realized that every picture I had taken during the process of phase two...got deleted. I weep. 

Anyway, we'll keep it simple. 

Refresher: you should have removed all piping and painted your chair frame - leave the stuffing and fabric in place. 

So, what you need now is either a small nail or staple gun with an air compressor, fabric and scissors. What worked best for me was the start on the backside of my chair at the top and work out from there being sure to pull my fabric tight and secure it with staples as I went along.

Here's the link to Jenny's tutorial - much more involved  but it has some pictures of good starting points. 

Ta-da! 

It also worked just fine to cut a piece of fabric large enough to be trimmed to fit after stapling. This causes a bit more waste than I'd prefer, but it allowed me to have some wiggle room if I made a mistake in my measurements. A tip - the fabric you use needs to be pretty heavy duty or it will be torn by the staples since you aren't tucking it and securing it the way you would if you were a legitimate upholstery guru. 

I actually used a $5.00 sheet from a department store and it's held up fine but it required folding the edge multiple times to prevent tearing in the thin fabric.

At this point you just go to town covering up that original fabric on your chair and stapling the new fabric securely - avoid wrinkly loose fabric. 

Once you've covered your chair   we'll start on the piping... which I think I may have pictures for - I'm holding off on that portion because the finished product depends a lot on placing the piping correctly. Out of the whole project the piping is the most precise portion - say that 5 times fast. 

Be back in a jiffy with another tutorial! 

Wing-Back Chair Re-Do

Let's be real....the easiest way to do this, is to make your way to the nearest upholstery shop, fork over some cash and say thank you.

 Next thing, if you're by the book? This tutorial is probably going to make you cry...


Wing-back chairs are not a really great starting point for amateurs but if you're anything like me - part of the fun involved in DIY projects is the experience, so I was all for just muddling through. Particularly because the chair only cost $13.00  

Before I get too deep into this thing, I must give credit to some of the ideas in this post where it's due.  The reason I tackled this chair in the first place was because of Jenny Komenda over at Little Green Notebook. Her upholstery tutorial was exhaustive to say the least and made me think it wouldn't be insane to take a swing at it. 

Here's her tutorial

The plan is for me to supplement by letting you know what I did and did not do... 

This was my challenge... 

Isn't it lovely? Also worth noting I now have beautiful floors in my dining room. Celebratory moment for getting rid of concrete floors. 

The First Step:

Stripping the chair... I had a few tools I used for this portion of the job including

A smallish flat head screw driver

Needle-nose pliers

A container for discarded tacks and staples

A good supply of enthusiasm, also bandaids help. You might consider some hydrogen-peroxide and butterfly bandages as well. 

Just kidding. Ish. 

Ok, so one thing Jenny suggests in her blog post is to photograph the chair as you go along, document, document, document. She is a smart lady - having pictures to reference as you begin to put fabric back on your chair is very helpful. Particularly if you photograph the areas of a that might be more difficult to reupholster. For example... 

I took detail photographs every chance I got so I wouldn't be dependent on my memory 

to make the chair look like it wasn't completely rigged. 

Step Two: 

Remove the cording on your chair. Some chairs don't have cording, some have trim or fabric tacks, whatever your chair might have - get it off. 

Take pictures as you go so you can see where they had the cording/trim meet, whether they had it glued, or sewed in particular places or just wrapped. It'll come in handy. 

No picture for this step because I don't like to follow my own advice.

Step Three: 

This is where Jenny would probably shake her head and bemoan my decision to write this post... I differ from her greatly in that in retrospect, I would not have removed the fabric from my chair. You can see in the photo how I began to do this .

What happened is that the structure of my chair - the only really great thing it had going for it, began to crumble. I was still able to remove tacks from the chair, but when I noticed the issue I was creating by pulling the stuffing out I opted to leave the staples securing the fabric alone, insuring a structured chair to re-cover.

A perk I can vouch for is that if you choose to leave the fabric attached you won't encounter the issues involved in re-stuffing. These range anywhere from a chair back that resembles a retiree's cottage-cheese thighs to a tired looking beer-gut effect achieved by not packing tight enough. Both are worth avoiding. 

What you should basically be left with is a chair stripped of any cording and excess tacks not securing fabric to the wooden frame. Just go stick the seat cushion in a closet somewhere, you won't need it for a while. 

Step Four (Last Step in This Post) 

Paint your frame! My chair required some sanding to rough up the poly coat enough to prime - if you don't do this the primer won't stick and if you use a water-based paint it will just peel off.

 I used three coats of white, water-based primer and then used a water-based coat of white paint to finish it off.

 Semi-gloss was my pick and just in case you don't have a particular brand of paint you like - avoid Glidden. I got awful results painting natural wood with Glidden, horrible coverage.

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Full disclosure here...leaving the fabric on the chair is not correct reupholstery protocol. When it's done correctly you should technically be able to remove the fabric and put a different material back on without losing the shape of the chair. The people at the upholstery shop can do it...obviously it isn't rocket science, but they charge you for it.  

This is just what worked for me, I've tried it on a few different things and when I found myself in a pinch needing a chair - I liked this approach best. 

SO, that being said - the next post will simply delve deeper into my wonky half-crazed methods, I'll show you how I attached the fabric and then the cording. I'll be painfully honest with what worked and didn't work and hopefully it'll work for you. 

That's all for this post - believe it or not these steps alone can be very time consuming if you're making a conscious effort not to give yourself multiple puncture wounds and/or lacerations.

 Be patient and don't get sloppy - if you aren't having fun, give it a break. I put this chair away for 2 or 3 months between painting the frame and putting on the new fabric and came at it with renewed enthusiasm when I pulled it back out. 

Shout out for renewed enthusiasm. 

If you give this a shot  please show me pictures! I'd love to see how your chair turns out...

- Rae