Happy day-after-Christmas, or Boxing Day as it's known in Canada (and other Commonwealth nations)! I am home in a quiet house with the boys, while the Professor takes his family out to check out the sales. It was a good Christmas, in spite of a couple of us having the flu (yay for Tamiflu!). I hope you enjoyed your Christmas as well. I was hoping to share this project with you before Christmas, but flu happened and Christmas came anyway, so here it is now :)

I have done a number of projects for this client over the last few years...

Those chairs are among my most pinned projects! Dropcloth has been the fabric of choice, so we stayed with it for this project for the dining room. Here are the chairs...

There are 4 side chairs and 2 arm chairs in the set. These chairs have great sentimental value, so my client wanted something special that would blend with what we had already done. We decided on a gathered skirt with horizontal pleats, like this...

August Blues - Antique Chair with Ticking Skirt

But, it was a challenge to make the ruffles go all around the back because of all the spindles. And, since the seats were just wood, my client requested a little padding for the seat area. And here is the after...

I made a pocket for 1/2" foam to be inserted in the seat area (the foam can be pulled out so the rest of the cover can be washed). The ruffled skirt attached to the back part of the seat with tabs and velcro. Grosgrain ribbon joined the ends of the skirt.

The side chairs required a slightly different treatment at the back, because of the additional spindles that jutted out from the rest of the back...

The gathers and pleats were such simple, but pretty details!

It was fun to set them up in my kitchen :)

Don't you think they fit right in? Special touches for some special pieces :)

Sherri

Every project/piece that I do has a story, it seems. It's part of why I started this blog, to tell the stories, because it's the stories of the furniture (and people!) that make this work so much more than just repetitive manufacturing. So, Facebook followers, you may remember this chair from a few months back...

A lovely antique rocking chair with a dropcloth slipcover (and those pleats!). Well, that rocking chair lives in a living room with this chair (also from awhile ago)...

An Ethan Allen chair with new ruffled slipcover, also out of dropcloth. Turns out that this chair has a relative who also resides in that room, a matching Ethan Allen couch who was feeling a little left out of the new-dropcloth-slipcover-loop. So my client decided to remedy that (see the matching chair peaking in from the corner?)...

Yes, it was time (it does have cushions - they were just removed before I got there). Sturdy and comfortable, but it was needing a fresh look. I love the rolled, tight back...

My client wanted to stick with the dropcloth theme and the ruffled skirt, but chose the 10oz version of fabric, since the couch is used much more often. My best friend for this project was my new ruffler foot - it worked great with the dropcloth and saved me a whole lot of time and frustration :)

Also new for this project was the extent of the cushion "rehab" required - I ended up removing not only the original fabric of the cushions, but also the inside muslin cover and the outer layer of Dacron. I replaced that layer with new Dacron and made new inner covers. Here they are with their new dropcloth slipcovers...

Fresh and clean and square! As with the chair, my client opted to go without piping for a simpler look.

The great part about this slipcover story is, not only did my client get a new slipcover, but she graciously allowed me to try something new - this was my first pin-fit on-site project. The couch stayed in her home, I went there to measure and pin-fit the piece, and brought it back to my place to sew it together. Having tried this, I think that my preference is to have the furniture with me when I construct the slipcover, but when that is not possible, pin-fitting on-site is a great alternative. Are you ready for the "after"? (Please excuse the quality of the pictures and the wrinkles - this was a quick install!)

It's a little wrinkled from being transported and a little less tailored than I usually make, but the client was very happy with the new look (the cushions had already been in use for a week, since I had brought them back to her earlier).