Thursday, April 30, 2009

MATELASSE SLIPCOVER

This is the before.  Notice that there is an attached back cushion.  That always presents a challenge and the usual way to deal with it is to pretend it just isn't there.  Once you have the slipcover on the piece, you can't tell what was underneath anyway.
The sofa is in a bedroom and the new slipcover softens the harder lines of the piece.  
The back view.  I guess you can say that my signature is a button back.  It adds detail and is so much cuter than a zipper.  If a slipcover needs an opening of some sort, I always do buttons, unless it would look stupid.  Normally, though, that is not the case.  I've had many clients suddenly want to float the sofa or loveseat so that the back actually shows.
Ruffled side pillows with covered buttons complete the new look.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

ALTERED PHOTOS - MY NEW FAVORITE THING

This is the statue that I loved in Linda's yard at The Barn.  It is just beautiful, as is.
 Enter Photoshop!  This is the same statue posterized.  I can't draw worth anything, but this handy dandy tool makes it look like a paint-by-number picture.  I just love it.
Even more than posterizing pictures, I love to invert them.
  I think it is such a cool look.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

The Fabulous Maison Rustique

Some of Debbie Hodge's amazing shirts and bags
Two of her winged heart bags
More lovely bags
Rita's charm necklaces








Linda and Rita







Tricia made the trip from Arizona with all this great stuff



Denim skirts by Minnie
Tricia and Mary
me and Mary




A lovely statue
And last but not least shots of Linda's wonderful little trailer.  The pictures aren't great because it's really hard to shoot in such a small space.  I couldn't capture the overall view when you step up and stick your head inside.




Gotta love the labels of these bottles of wine!
As always, the food, fun and conversation were wonderful.  Thanks again to Linda for opening her barn each month!

Friday, April 24, 2009

NOT YOUR USUAL SLIPCOVERED CHAIR

This chair presented a challenge.  My client wanted a slipcover but didn't want the wood covered.  Normally when slipcovering something that has wood, you just kind of pretend it isn't there and cover it as if the entire piece was upholstered.  In this case, though, she wanted all of the wood showing.  She also had only a small piece of fabric she purchased in Paris.
As I've said before, I cut with the fabric on the actual furniture in your house.  Again, this was an exception to that general rule because I had to figure out how to do this while doing it.  The usual way to do a slipcover like this would be to have ties for closure.  In this case, the only way I thought it would look good was to use snaps.  So I took the chair home with me and the fun began...
I did tabs with snaps through the wooden scroll work.
The full view of the finished chair.  Not bad, if I do say so myself!  I was very happy with how it turned out, as was my client.

Just imagine this chair with ties instead of snaps.  I think I used about 50 snaps in total, which means I would have needed the same number of ties.  Not only did I not have enough fabric for that many ties, the chair would have looked ridiculous.  Although it was somewhat time-consuming to sew on that many snaps, it would have taken far longer to make 50 pairs of ties.  The style of the chair dictated how to do the cover.
You can kind of see the snaps at the sides.  I did covered button tabs to keep the front side and back side together.
Sometimes seemingly 'unslipcoverable' pieces actually can be transformed with a little imagination and work.