... Random Round-Up: Baby Edition (Pom-Pom Curtains, Crib Sheets, Baby Clothes)

So here's my reason for being so lazy lately: I have been gestating a baby! It's true. Not that this actively takes a lot of time, but it has made me fairly tired at different points and has certainly taken up a lot of mental energy as we try to get everything ready for our new tiny roommate. All this preparation has involved making things, of course. So what follows are a few baby-related projects I've been working on in the last few months. I have to warn you, the word "cute" figures heavily into this post.

Pom-Pom Curtains

Several of the projects have been for the nursery, which is still in-progress but happily getting closer to completion. One of the first things I made for the nursery was a set of pom-pom curtains for the room's lone window. I started with a pair of fairly sheer white voile tab-top panels that I picked up at IKEA for about $10. The window looks directly at the building next to ours, about five feet away - not the most attractive thing to look at - so I wanted something that would let in light while still screening the view. I decided I didn't like the look of the tab-tops (they were weirdly long, so the curtains hung low and exposed the top of the roller shade) so I cut them off and sewed in rod pockets instead (the curtains came unhemmed, so I had a lot of extra length to work with) and then hemmed the bottom.

Attaching the pom-pom trim was really easy - just a matter of pinning it down to the inside and bottom edges of each panel and stitching down the center of the trim.

I got the trim on Etsy for about $2.50/yd. I think I used about 8 yards (with some left over), so the curtains cost me about $26 all told. I think that's a pretty good price for something this cute!! 

(Oh yes, as you might have guessed from the pom-pom color, we're having a girl. Not that boys can't do pink - and the nursery has lots of bright colors, of which pink is just one. But I couldn't resist just a little pink. Moving on...)

Fitted Crib Sheets

We're planning on having the baby in our bedroom for the first few months, so we have a tiny little crib for that purpose. This tiny little crib has a tiny little mattress which is too small for most crib sheets, so I made some of my own. Each sheet took about a yard of 44" cotton, with some muslin strips sew to the short ends to make it long enough to wrap under the mattress.

Making the corners is very easy - I folded the two edges of a corner to make a triangle, then used a pencil and a straight edge to mark my sewing line perpendicular to the folded edges. This makes a nice square corner. After sewing each corner, I just had to sew a casing for the elastic and thread it through. Super easy!

I made a few sheets in different prints, just for fun. And also because I expect them to be peed on and then need to be changed.

Baby Clothes

OK, I held off on making baby clothes for a while, because I had other things going, I didn't know how big the baby would be, etc. etc. But now that I've started, I can't stop. I've said it before: making baby clothes is instant-gratification sewing - you can make a ton in just an afternoon. Plus, they take so little fabric - I'm using up loads of my scrap collection. It's awesome!

Because of my complete lack of personal knowledge about infants, I'm really clueless about sizing. So I started by sniffing around the internet for free infant dress patterns, of which there are quite a few. Behold, my growing obsession:

I made this dress from a tutorial on Sew Much Ado - a little peasant dress with a rick-rack hem. Come on, that's adorable.

This was based on a tutorial at Craftiness is not Optional, which has a ton of ideas for terminally cute kids' clothes. I'm not sure how old things have to be to be considered "vintage", but I'm going to go ahead and say that this fabric and button are vintage (they are at least from the early 80's - they come from my mum's stash. She thinks she probably got them while making baby clothes for me). 

This dress is so cute, I can barely stand it. I made it with a tutorial at Made by Rae. And then once I made the dress, I felt like it needed a little hat...

And then all the dresses obviously all needed matching diaper covers, which I made with a pattern from MADE... I know. It's becoming a problem. I'm trying to hold off for now, because I know that babies grow wicked fast, and they poop all over everything, and all that. But it's hard.

So that's what I've been up to lately, besides sitting around being as big as a killer whale, debating middle names, and being unable to pick up things from the ground (problematic when you drop things as much as I do). I'm still working on some projects for the baby's room - I just finished up a skirt for the crib - which I'm hoping to show when it's finished. I'm starting to think that the baby might beat the nursery into completion, though. Just a few weeks left! 

... reupholstered caned-back chair

I... I can hardly believe it. We finished reupholstering that chair!*

I feel like I've been looking at it in it's half-finished state forever. It feels so good to have it finally done! Not to mention it helps to have an extra seat in the living room. Here's the "before" shot and the whole story:

Sorry for the inexecusably awful pic. It's apparently the only one I took.

We got the chair at a yardsale a few years ago for about $20. The seat was really comfy and the caning was in remarkably good shape. We knew we'd eventually have to do something about the fabric on the seat, which was getting really threadbare. We used it as-was for a couple of years, until the fabric finally split and the front legs started to detach a bit from the rest of the frame. Rehab time!

We stripped off the fabric and the old foam underneath. Luckily for us, the cotton batting and coils were in decent shape so we didn't have to much about replacing those. George reattached the front legs and shored them up with some strategically placed wood screws. For the reupholstering, we followed the same basic steps we used when redoing the ottoman. Since we already had the coils, burlap and batting in place, the next step was attaching a new piece of 1" foam (George was on staple gun duty once again). Then the chair sat for literally months while I dithered about what fabric to use on the seat.

Finally I bit the bullet and ordered some velvety chenille (it was poly - all I could find - so really reasonable, about $12/yd) in an elephant-y gray. I think it makes a nice break from all the patterns in the living room - it's soothing (as far as chair fabric can be soothing). We stapled down a layer of batting before finally attaching the fabric. We chose to pull it all the way under the chair and staple to the underside, rather than to the front of the chair as the original fabric was attached. It was just a heck of a lot easier. Attaching the fabric was a little more complicated than in our ottoman job, because we needed to make release cuts around the arms and legs. They aren't perfect, but I was happy enough with them at the end of the day.

The last step was sewing a few lengths of double-welt cord and hot gluing it around the legs in the front, to cover the raw edge of the fabric and make it look purdy. Then... finally done!

Well, almost. We could still attach single welt cording around the entire bottom length of the chair for a really finished look - but I ran out of cotton cord. So until I get some more, this is finished enough for me. It looks puffier than the original, but I think it'll wear in over time. Plus it is just super-comfy to sit on. George has his favorite reading chair back, and the cats have another surface to completely coat in cat hair.

So what the heck else have I been doing for over a month since I posted anything? Lazy, lazy. I do have a few more projects to write about, one of which will explain my questionably legit excuse. More soon, but first let me bask in the glow of finally finishing* that damn chair!

*Mostly.

... reupholstered ottoman

The ottoman, it is finished! I am so seriously happy with the way it came out, and the fact that it's done. This is a project that we've had on deck for months, so it feels really satisfying. Without further ado, the process!

I was taking a walk around my neighborhood with my mum back in the fall when we spotted this oversized ottoman frame out by the side of the road.  Incidentally, "the side of the road" is one of my favorite places to find old furniture. In our very college-y neighborhood in Boston, we found tons of great stuff that way, especially when everyone was moving out at the end of a semester. Anyway, the ottoman seemed sturdy and, being made of wood, seemed to have a low possibility of harboring bedbugs (I left it outside for like a month, just in case), so we picked it up and carried it back to my apartment. In the "Before" shots below, you can see that we basically started out with the wooden frame and coils with most of the padding and fabric already removed.

The first thing we did was spend some QT with the pliers, a screwdriver and a claw-foot hammer, removing the many, many staples left over from the previous reupholstering job and the last bits of fabric that were hanging on. I'm not going to lie, this part was no fun. But with two of us (the two being me and George, who was my partner in crime on this project) working on it, we banged it out in a few hours. The next step was re-tying a few of the coils where the original cord had broken. Luckily for me, most of the string was in good shape and I didn't have to do too much. Then we stapled a large piece of burlap over the coils.

At this point I should mention that for the majority of this project I followed the excellent Upholstery Basics tutorial on Design*Sponge - you can check it out here. It's incredibly detailed and helpful and it you're tacking this kind of project for the first time, I think you'll find it invaluable. OK, moving on! Next step was to add a bunch of stuffing for cushioning. I actually used the insides of some couch cushions we no longer use, so we got in a little extra bit of up-cycling there.

The cats were super-intrigued by this part, so it was hard to get an in-progress shot without them in it. So after the stuffing, it was time for the foam. We used a large piece of 2"-thick foam, cut to the size of the ottoman with an extra half-inch on each side. George used spray-adhesive to attach pieces of burlap to the edges of the foam rectangle, which we used to pull down and staple to the frame. This gave a nice rounded edge all the way around.

Sorry for the crap picture quality - we were working on this at night. And watching TV.

Next was a layer of batting. I used high-loft quilting batting, which is the kind that comes in a big roll. We cut a large piece to fit and draped it over the top. To attach it, we actually separted the layers a bit around the edges, stapling the bottom layer and then smoothing the top layer down to hide the dimple left by the staples. Neat trick, huh?

God, this picture is even worse. Sorry!

At this point, it was ready for fabric! I used a cotton slub (feels kind of like linen) in a yellow and white ikat-ish pattern. This was another drape-and-staple layer - the only tricky bits were the corners and making sure we got the staples as close to the bottom trim as possible.

This was the point at which we could actually sit on the ottoman and use it, so we got a little lazy about actually doing the finishing work. This weekend we finally completed the last step, which was to sew double-welt cord and glue it over the exposed staples. I used this tutorial  on Centsational Girl for tips on how to sew the double-welt cord without the special presser foot made specifically for doing so, since I didn't have one. Then it was just a matter of hot-gluing the cord over the exposed staples, just above the decorative wooden trim.

That's it! I just used a little Murphy's Wood Soap on the frame to shine it up, and it was 100% done. I'm so happy with the way it came out. It was definitely the most complicated reupholstery job that I've tried, but was also the perfect piece to start on since it was just a big rectangle - no arms or back to cut around. I was trying to figure out how much it cost overall - I think the materials set me back $60-$70 altogether (that's for the burlap, foam - which is always super-pricey although I got a pretty good deal on this stuff at Mardens's - fabric, batting and cord) which I don't think is too bad for such a large piece and I do have a bunch of materials left over for the next project. In terms of time, I'd say we spent 3-4 days on it, although we obviously weren't working on it all day on those days. Definitely a success for us - it's really comfy and has added two more much-needed seats to our living room. Well, really just one seat in the aggregate - while I was sewing the welt cord, George was stripping the fabric off and reinforcing the legs of an armchair that will be our next reupholstery project. It never ends! But that's kind of the point.

... set of reupholstered dining chairs

I sing of chairs and a (wo)man! My dining chair refinishing/reupholstering epic is finally over. Truth be told, I actually finished them up about a month ago - but December is always crazy busy and I was lazy about downloading and editing all the pictures I took of the process. But I’m really psyched about the way they came out, so I’m excited to talk about them now!

Here’s the backstory: my parents gave us four Queen Anne-style chairs that had originally belonged to my great-grandmother and were subsequently used by my grandmother and later, my parents. I remember our family using them when we were younger, but they had been in my parents’ basement for at least ten or fifteen years. We were pretty excited to get them, because they’re in pretty good shape and we needed some dining room furniture, as we’ve never actually had a dining room before. Because we were planning on getting a big table, we picked up two additional chairs at a local used furniture store in Old Orchard Beach. They weren’t a perfect match, but since they also had generally the same “honey oak” wood tone, tall backs and upholstered seats, I thought they’d look pretty well together. 

"Before" chairs, from left to right: previously refinished Queen Anne chair, lone original Queen Anne chair, and "fancy" chair from a second-hand store 

So here’s where I was at the beginning: four Queen Anne-style chairs, three of which had been refinished by my mum (wood stripped and stained, seats re-covered) and one which was virtually untouched; and two second-hand store chairs (which for ease of distinguishing the two sets I will now refer to as “fancy chairs”), which originally had caned seats but now had very worn leather seats. 

I tackled the recovering the seats first. When I really examined the Queen Anne chair seats, I realized that they had actually undergone several re-coverings, but that everyone that had done so had just put new fabric right over the old. I decided to strip all the fabric of and maybe add some new foam for a softer seat. Particularly when I found out what was the actual “cushioning agent” in these old chairs.

"Before" seats, clockwise from top left: pulling away layer #1 to reveal layer #2; layer #3 (groovy); original fabric (on un-refinished chair), and nasty, nasty horsehair.

HORSEHAIR. Isn’t that super-gross? I thought it was. I was particularly glad I stripped all the layers off outside, because the horsehair was so old that it was disintegrating into a fine dust and getting everywhere. Gag. The other tough part about the seat-stripping process was that the older fabric was attached with ancient, tiny, rusty little tacks that were too small to grab with a regular claw hammer. My dad luckily had a little tool called a cat’s paw (how cute is that?) which worked really well. And in showing my how to use it, he did half the work for me. Bonus.

While I was outside, I figured it was a good time to strip the Queen Anne chair that had never been refinished. The finish was way darker than the other chairs, so I hoped that using a stripping agent would lighten it a bit. That stuff is super-toxic though, not my favorite.

I think I was actually smiling under the mask.

It worked OK. What actually worked a lot better was vigorously sanding the crap out of it. That lighted the wood to the point where I thought it would actually take some stain. I used what literally may have been the same can of stain that my mum used to refinish the other chairs, as it looked like it has been in the basement for twenty years or so. After two coats of stain and about four coats of poly, I think the wood tone is pretty reasonably close to the other three. It’s a tiny bit darker and not quite as warm, but good enough for me.

Back to the seats! I now had four completely stripped wooden seat bases for the Queen Anne chairs - no horsehair in sight. The leather and plywood seats from the fancy chairs were in such rough shape, I decided to replace them completely. I used the discarded seat to make a template of the seat shape on kraft paper, which my dad used to cut me two seat bases out of plywood. Then it was a trip to the fabric store for fabric, 1” foam, and batting. 

Thanks, dad!

Chosen fabric - I put a bird on it. I can't help it.

These seats are absolutely the easiest type of reupholstery project - you just layer on all your materials and staple gun that junk to the bottom of the seat. For these seats, I cut the 1” foam to the shape of the seat, plunked it on, then wrapped the batting around it to soften the edges and stapled the batting to the bottom. Then it was just a matter of cutting the fabric a bit bigger than the seats, wrapping it over the batting and foam, and stapling that to the bottom. It’s really easy, you start by putting a staple or two in the middle of each side and then working all the way around. You have to finesse the corners a bit, but honestly the hardest part was deciding where to cut the fabric so that the pattern on the seat was aesthetically pleasing. I obviously bought exactly the amount of fabric I needed and then promptly cut one seat out upside-down, necessitating another trip to the fabric store. Obviously.

Layering the materials

I love staple guns. I got a new one for Christmas, actually.

Once the seats were covered, I had to reattach the hardware that was holding the fancy chair seats over the hole where the caning had been. Finishing the Queen Anne chairs was as easy as popping the seats back into the chairs. Done! Six relatively similar chairs, tied together by general shape, color and upholstered seats. I’m really happy with the way they came out. I’d show a nice picture of them in the dining room with our new table, but we ordered the table two months ago from West Elm and it’s still backordered. Details!

... fabric-covered roller shade

The fixing up of our new apartment continues! And while I never feel like a room is ever really “done”, I’m getting pretty close to “done for now” with my sewing room. In fact I’m almost ready to do a whole before-and-after post about it, but in the meantime here’s a quick little project I knocked together for the lone window in that room.

First I should say that I really have a thing about mini-blinds, and that thing is deep dislike. They are ugly, insanely irritating to clean, and it drives me absolutely nuts when the bottom is crooked after you pull them up. So of course there are mini-blinds in every single window of our new place, and I will be systematically eradicating them one by one.

The mini-blinds in the sewing room were particularly bad in that they were broken - some of the strips were snapped off on one side. This left an exposed hole when the blinds were down and when you pulled the blinds up, some of the strips would hang diagonally below the bottom. It looked like the mini-blind had a hernia. 

To replace it, I wanted something clean and simple - no drapes that I would bump into or get caught up in when I’m moving around the room working on sewing projects - but would add a shot of color to the room. Privacy isn’t much of an issue for that window, because it looks at the side of the building next door about four feet away. For the same reason, light quality really isn’t a big issue either. So I decided to use a simple roller shade and cover it with a colorful fabric - done and done.

This was a super easy project to prep for - just unrolled the roller blind and washed it, measured it, and cut the fabric to fit with a rotary cutter (adding about two inches to each side). The I ironed the fabric, took everything outside, and used my trusty spray adhesive to adhere the fabric to the shade. The one issue was how to finish the sides. I initially thought I’d wait for the adhesive to set and then use a rotary cutter to trim the extra fabric right to the edge of the shade, but I was concerned it would eventually start to fray. So I decided to wrap the sides around and glue them on the back, thinking no one would see the back side, anyway. However, I totally forgot that you see the back side of the shade on bit that’s rolled up. I don’t hate the look of the fabric on the sides - because the fabric I used has a white background, it kind of looks intentional, like a border - but I do wish I had trimmed the excess so that the sides were even. Right now one side is wider than the other. But it’s not driving me crazy (YET). So if you use this method, make sure to trim the edges even before you glue them down to the back. Or, you could cover the roller up with a valance or something (I’m just not a huge fan of valances).

Then George took down the hated blinds, installed the roller shade hardware, and we hung the shade. That’s it! I will say, the fabric makes the shade a little heavy, so it doesn’t spring up as quickly or enthusiastically as a shade normally would - but this doesn’t really bother me. I love that this was a pretty dirt-cheap project, which is my favorite kind. The fabric was from Marden’s and I think was about $4/yd, and I bought two yards, so that’s $8 for the fabric. I actually got the roller shade from my parents, who had a few leftover after changing some window treatments in their house, so that was free. And I already had the spray adhesive. So all in all $8 and about 2-3 hours (including drying time and installation) and I’m up one unique, colorful window treatment and down one nasty set of mini-blinds - I’ll take it. Only 13 more windows to go!!