Nursery Glider Makeover Part 2

So, in my last post I showed how to make the back cushion.  This post I'm going to show you how to make over the bottom cushion that you sit on.

First thing I did, was remove the old upholstery:

Now.  Please note that the bottom cushion is a "T" shape.  Holy cow.  How do I do this?  Well, I thought I would just trace the top/bottom, and then add a middle piece to combine the top and bottom.  I tried that.  It didn't work so well.  I suck.  I did what anyone would do....I called mommy.  I cried.  She came over to my house, and we talked it out.  This was the plan we came up with:

I drew out my 3D cushion shape, and then drew out my 2D piece of fabric...follow me?  basically I had to add 2 1/2 inches to each side.  That means when your cushion is 24 inches  one way, you add 5 inches and make it 29 inches.  There were tears.  Lots and lots of tears.  I couldn't quite wrap my head around what I was doing, but I trusted my mommy.

I set out to measure.  I'll be honest, I didn't take a lot of pictures of this part because I wasn't sure I was doing it right and like I said, I cried...a lot.  I kept thinking I had just messed it up.  Now, why would I cry about that?  Well folks, as I mentioned previously, I bought the fabric at hobby lobby...on clearance...and only had 3 yards and change.  I didn't have ANY room for error.  And technically I had messed up already once (but I'll tell you at the end of all this with the finished product what I did wrong).

Okay.  I measured cut and pinned.  Let me mention at this moment that a rotary cutter, cutting mat, square and straight edge make things SO MUCH EASIER.  At the top corners, I measured and sewed 4 inches deep to make the corners of the "T."

Down the sides I measured and cut.  Remember I added 2 inches plus seam allowance on to each side of each piece for the 4 inch depth of the cushion.  I drew and made notes where i needed to cut, and where I needed to sew to make things fit.  It worked for me.

The first line on the left is the size of the cushion.  All the fabric to the right of the first line is for the side and seam.  Does that make sense?  This way, I had two top corners and the sides fitted to the cushion like this:

This left the little two inch parts of the "T" open.  So I just sewed some fabric in like this:

Do you see the seam?  How it all ends up fitting together??  I left the back end of the case open again so it can be removed and thrown in the wash if needed.  I followed the same steps of adding the ribbon as I did on the other cushion and ended up with:

There is my bottom cushion.  I made the cover for the foam cushion the same way out of white fabric, but sewed it closed.  I thought about adding foam to the cushion to make it a little more comfy, but once I let the cushion fluff up from removing the old cover, it didn't need any more foam.  

phew.

Thanks for stopping by!

p.s. I'm linking up to these parties:

Nursery Glider Makeover Part 1

Have I mentioned yet my sweet brother-in-law and his adorable fiance are going to have the cutest most precious baby in the whole world (okay-I may be a little biased here).  One thing I told them was I wanted to get them a rocker for the nursery.  I would take care of it.  I'm here to tell you folks...rockers are expensive.  I'm not even joking.  I had no idea.  Apparently the inexpensive pressboard ones start at $99-120 and it only goes up from there.  Of course I went and started looking at the baby stores, and then the furniture stores.  The ones I picked out were always the "cadillac" models and ran $600+.  No thank you.  I love them, and little Maddie, but I don't have that kind of money.

So then I turned to blogland for some ideas because it seems a lot of people are having babies right now.  Most of what I found were people who had rockers just painting them, and putting the cushions back on, or adding more foam to the rocker for comfort.  Now we were heading in the right direction.  I decided to start looking on craigslist for gliders (rocking chairs?...I dunno).  I looked for weeks.  WEEKS.  Then, I found it.  Solid oak.  It looked like it had good bones, but the fabric was less than attractive.  Especially for a baby girl's room, but I had the internet and I could certainly figure out how to reupholster the fabric right?

I already had a fabric in mind, it is beautiful...

Look at how pretty it is!  Brown and cream and bunnies and sheep!  How perfect for the nursery (the nursery is shades of brown and cream and pink with beautiful creamy white furniture). PERFECT.  I bought all of the fabric HL had....3 yds and change.  It was on a roll.  It was amazing.  Well, this fabric has sat on its roll for a couple months because of school.  Then earlier in January, I realized we had about 6 weeks left until this baby was going to get here.  I had to get on the ball.  I started with the cushions.  I removed the back cushion and pulled it apart.

EXCELLENT glider-perfect for the nursery. 

Here is the fabric that was on the cushions...ick. 

So I began by taking all of the old fabric off the back and bottom cushions.  The back cushion was like a big pillow and the bottom was a form form.  Both had the little dimples sewn into the cushions (I have totally forgotten what they are called-).  

I took my hem-puller-outer and my scissors and began to take all the stitching out. 

Then I got:

and finally some help....

I tried not to totally destroy the original fabric so I could use it as a pattern.  I was pretty confidant in making the back pillow, so that is what the rest of this post is about, trust me, I was overwhelmed trying to figure out what exactly I was doing....  This back part was a big pillow with some fancy attachments, so I could manage that first.  

I used some white material my mommy gave me (a whole bolt) to make a "form" for the back.  The idea is to make "forms" with "covers" that can be removed and washed when they get dirty.  I know babies throw up and manage to poop or tinkle in places outside their diapers (its a mystery how it happens-).  

I laid the material out, and traced around it, and made two pieces.  I stuffed and sewed them up to make one big pillow:

Once it was all stuffed, I just closed it up and smoothed out the stuffing.  I did add another bag (or two) because pillows lose their "fluff" with more use, and I'm planning on this getting a lot of use.  ;) 

The next thing was to make the cover for this gigantic pillow.  So, the first thing I needed to do was to make sure I loops for the pillow to attach to the chair.  The original pillow only had two, but I decided this huge pillow needed two more to bring the total to four. 

I folded some strips of fabric that were about 2 inches wide.  I folded the insides in and sewed them up to make long strips then made the loops and sewed them into place.  Phew.  Step one accomplished.  

I had cut the shape of the pillow out of the fabric, pinned it in place and added the loops at appropriate intervals to fit on the chair. 

Once it is sewn together, and flipped right side out, you get this:

Like I said I wanted to make this be a cover that can be removed and washed when needed, so I left the bottom completely open.  I ironed some folds in and attached some brown ribbon on either side and then stitched it together so the ribbon was now part of the cover.  

Then, when you flip it right side out and put the pillow in:

OKAY.  So thats all for now.  I'll add another post about the bottom cushion and the frame this week. 

Thanks for visiting!

p.s. I'm linking up to these great parties:

 

Miss Maddie

It has been a long 9 months folks.  I'm saying that as an Aunt, not as someone who actually went through the 9 months.  I hear it can be really hard.  On Tuesday, February 15, 2011, in the wee hours of the morning Miss Maddie made her appearance.  She weighed 8 lbs 12 oz and was 19.5 inches long. 

Okay, so that was right after she was born...not real happy yet.  That's okay, like any good aunt, I have more to share. ;) 

This was the next morning.  Isn't she just a doll???

Here is my dear Hubby getting to hold her for the first time, he was a little scared and not really sure what to do. 

Here I am with the little Angel!  I love her SO much! 

Okay, a couple more...

LOVE her! 

This one has been our favorite so far. 

I apologize for the quality of some of these...or all of them-we forgot our camera in our haste to go for our first visit, so thanks to our handy iPhones and their awesome camera, we were able to get some okay shots, but I have more pictures to come! 

AND, I can finally post about my glider I made for Momma and sweet Maddie! 

Thanks for stopping by!

post

I have a post.  Its actually like three posts.  But its about a glider I've refinished for my new niece's nursery...and I have to wait until she is born before I can post it.  I discovered my brother-in-law reads my blog semi-regularly so in an effort to keep the reveal a secret until they get home from the hospital, I'm going to have to come up with something else. ugh.

I started my new job this week.  It was pretty boring.  I'm not a fan of orientations.  I didn't cook this week. I didn't run this week.  I'm lame this week.  Sorry. :(

Beef Stew

I have decided I'm going to post a new recipe every week (or try to), and this week I'm posting about my hubby's favorite beef stew.  I did a lot of looking online and in my many cookbooks to find a beef stew recipe that Hubby would like.  I never found one.  SO, I combined things out of several different recipes and came up with the following:

In a CrockPot combine
- 1 1/2 lbs of stew meat (our grocery store sells meat already cubed)
- half bag of each of the following vegetables: corn, green beans, onions
- 1 small bunch of celery (heart? or bunch?) cut into bite size pieces
- half bag of baby peeled carrots cut length wise
- 4 potatoes (I use red skinned because that's what hubby likes) cut into bite size pieces
- 1 can of dices tomatoes (do not drain)
- 2 beers (favorite flavor, but beers with more bold flavors taste better)
- Season salt, garlic powder, italian seasonings (use to taste... I sprinkle a liberal dusting of each seasoning on the top of all the ingredients)

- Cornstarch

Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 6 hours.

before you serve it, if you like a thicker stew, remove a bowl of the broth, and whisk in about 4 tbl of cornstarch and then add it back to the pot and stir.  This makes it thicker.  Serve!

I don't really know if this constitutes as a stew without the cornstarch, or if that is really the correct way to thicken something like a stew, but that's how I make gravy, so I figured it would work for my stew.  Most of the time, I don't really know what I am doing, I just wing it.  :)

I hope you enjoy this as much as we do, it really took some time to figure out what hubby liked and didn't like, he's kind of picky, but this is now what he asks for regularly!

Thanks for stopping by!






p.s. I'm linking up to these parties: