When I first started my business back in 1992, then called Design Options, I only was doing window treatments, bedding and pillows. People kept asking for slipcovers, though, so I decided I'd better learn how to make them. I bought all the books and read up on everyone else's opinions of the best ways to make slipcovers. Still, the only real way for me to learn how to do something is to actually do it. The problem was that at the time I had no furniture that I could practice on. My sofa was a futon and I had director's chairs for my dining room table. I had no upholstered pieces. So I went to Betty's Resale Shop (this was in Chicago) and bought a chair for $12. It was a small chair and not exactly what I wanted, but the price was right.
In an attempt to make the chair look more like what I wanted it to be size-wise, I bought batting and covered the entire chair with it, several times, until it was puffier. Then I kind of upholstered it with duck cloth because you can't really put a slipcover directly on batting and expect the batting to stay in place. I didn't do too bad a job, but because I had no clue what I was really doing, nor how to do it, I sewed the arm fronts by hand, which meant the chair couldn't be used without a slipcover. No big deal since that was what I wanted in the first place. Anyway, at the time I was working at Loomcraft and I had always loved this fabric. With my employee discount, it was probably $5/yard. By the time I made this, though, I had already 'learned' how to make slipcovers on a client's benches, sofas and chairs. Talk about being thrown in the deep end and having to sink or swim! I learned very quickly how to swim, and have been 'swimming' ever since. I no longer have this chair, but I still love the slipcover!
No comments:
Post a Comment