SLIPCOVERED KITCHEN BAR STOOLS

I did the slipcovers for the bar stools in November or December.  I had one of the chairs at my house and when I delivered them, only one of the other stools could be located.  The house was still being renovated, and we all knew that there were three stools originally.  Eventually, the 'lost' chair was found, and the kitchen was finally finished.

The fabric is a dark gray Sunbrella with a contrast flat welt and banding on the skirt in an aqua check.

At the bar in the kitchen.

With one of the paisley throw pillows, just for a little more color.

  The nice thing about the slipcovers is since they are made with Sunbrella, the wear and tear will be minimal, and they can simply be wiped down if food is spilled on them.

'FORMAL' CASUAL LIVING ROOM DRAPERIES

I have tried and tried to get good pictures of these draperies, and this is the best I was able to do.  

The above picture was taken before the furniture was even in the living room.  The fabric is from Designers Guild Limited through Osborne & Little Inc.  The pattern is called Orsoglio and the color is Azure.  The panels have inverted pleats, puddle on the floor, and to make them even more luxurious, they are interlined.  Though the fabric looks and acts like silk, it is a cotton/polyester blend.

In the next two pictures, you can see why I had trouble taking pictures.  When the draperies are open, it is too bright outside, and all that really shows up is the street.  It seemed I was always at this house during the middle of the day, which meant the sun was always an issue.

Short of going over at night to take pictures, I did the best I could with what I had to work with.  And why I did not take a shot from further back, I have no idea.  The sectional is full of pillows that I made, but for some reason it did not occur to me to put both pillows and draperies in the same picture.  Actually, I just looked again and there is one:

And it's a great picture of the street outside the window, but not so much the draperies, or even the pillows on the sofa.  Oh, well, I think you get the idea!

BALLOON VALANCE OF SORTS

I delivered these balloon valances (the other is not visible in pictures) a couple weeks before Christmas.  When my client saw them up, she said, "I don't like them.  I don't like khaki."  Well, that upset me greatly, though I did my best to remain calm.  It would have been very helpful to me if she or the designer had mentioned this kind-of-important fact to me before I made them.  And when I saw the picture of it, I thought, 'she's right, they really don't look that good.'

The solution was to unmount them from the boards, which would involve removing the million staples I had used to make sure it was nice and secure,  and reverse the pleats so that the turquoise that ended up inside the poofs would be out and the khaki that she did not care for would be inside.  I literally thought, and worried, about this all through Christmas.  And when I got back, I texted her and said that, of course, I would happily fix them.

Turned out, though that the designer had fooled with them and was able to somehow pull enough of the turquoise out of the pleat that the client was happy.  I had to admit when I saw it that it wasn't bad.  Yes, the khaki is still prominent, but at least the prettier color is now showing.

Although it is not so evident in the pictures, this fabric is really quite lovely.  And incredibly expensive!  It is from Designers Guild and, at wholesale, it is $250 a yard.  The fabric alone for these two windows was $1000!

  I learned a valuable lesson on this job...make sure the likes and dislikes of certain colors are communicated clearly to me.  I make what I am told to make, but I do not want a client to be unhappy with something that I've done, whether my fault or not.  And while it would have been a huge pain to 'fix' these balloon shades, I would have done it.  Even though my client was not initially happy, in the end, she was.  And that made me happy!