What is Melissa Doing in her Spare (haha) Time?

Technorati Tags: upholstery,upholstery repair,do-it-yourself upholstery,needlework repair,needlework restoration,needlework cleaning,needlework doctor,needlework finishing

Why, taking her first ever (and maybe last ever!) upholstery class, of course! Yep, that’s what I do for fun and to save money (but lose blood) on my own furniture. In typical fashion, I began my upholstering odyssey with THE hardest thing for even seasoned craftsmen to do: tufting.  And not just any tufting, but a tufted double ottoman with 18 buttons. sigh

Before I even show you the piece, let me tell you, this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I have some arthritis setting in that I refuse to acknowledge, and removing hundreds of staples from this very well-made piece in order to “break it down” was killer on my hands. I also, at one point, sported 4 Band-Aids. Yes, there IS a reason why you usually see male upholsterers. And how much did my husband help? Well…he puts the ottoman in the car for me, if he’s home. He never took out one staple. He never even offered. Not that I blame him, but there *is* a husband in our class, helping his wife every single week.

Anyway, here is the ottoman “before,” while it has doggie hair and dirt on it and where you can see my Australian cattle dog bit some buttons off, back when he was a pup. What you can’t see from my photo is that this is forest green, burgundy and cream. I’m trying to do a more updated color. As the story continues, just about everything went wrong with finding my fabric!

So, the fabric I chose was this (below) but you can’t tell it’s more of a light gold with, again, the green and burgundy:

I LOVED this fabric and it was $15/yd from the discount place. Got 5 yards. Began breaking down my ottoman:

		Upholstery VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I don’t have photos of the stripped-down piece, but to continue with my sad fabric saga, once I took it to class, we figured out it wasn’t wide enough (ottoman is longer than 54” fabric) AND the pattern ran in one direction, like wallpaper. That meant that if I “railroad” the pattern top to bottom all around like I’m supposed to, the pattern would be upside-down in the back. Now, for some people, that might work, if the piece goes up against a bed’s footboard or something. However, this is extra seating for my den, so it sorta needed to be correct.

Solution: use that fabric on my 2nd upholstery project, which is another really difficult piece, a chair with channeled back and piping!

I’ll post more photos later of my ottoman. Each class is 3 hours, takes 4 classes and costs $195 total. Fabric was sorta purchased twice. I don’t think I’m saving much money, do you? LOL

Oops! Bedspread Returns for More Repairs

Well, I’m dreadfully embarrassed to say that one of my repair projects came back to me. My customer, Kay, was very understanding, though, and I do appreciate it. Kay’s crocheted bedspread had so much handwork in it that it is easy to see why areas would come loose and need work. After six or seven hours’ worth of putting things back together, however, I do believe that several other areas literally “came out in the wash.” My textile cleaner June does a great job, but though the spread was nice and white and looked great after its bath, it sure had many places that needed to be re-stitched. The spread is, however, so beautiful, and Kay says that her mother worked on it while pregnant with her. What a great piece to own! I know she sure is glad to have it all nice now. Here are more areas I worked on lately. The rest of this story is in an earlier post:

Kay's Bedspread Repairs VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

And here are a few more action shots of the bedspread repair. Kay marked spots with her safety pins, but I found a bunch more and marked them for her with orange thread that she can snip off once she receives the bedspread. Thanks for your patience and understanding, Kay!

		More Bedspread Repair VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Pineapple Crochet Project: a Tablecloth

Gayle K, a repeat customer, had a beautifully-worked round tablecloth in the familiar pineapple pattern. This pattern is really a lot of crochet chain, single, double and treble stitching. It’s just the sheer volume of work that makes it a long project. The pattern booklet Gayle sent with the project looked as if it came from the 1940’s. This is it in the photo to the left, I believe. I’ve already sent it back to Gayle. She also sent plenty of thread, and I used the ball that was attached:

               

The pattern was pretty easy to follow. Took me a while to see where the original needle-worker had left off, and I definitely had to get to working on it before I realized how much time was involved in covering one round! The piece was probably about 70 inches already, but it wasn’t blocked. So just going the rounds I did on it pulled it out and then I did a lace finish on it. Here is how the tablecloth looked as received:

		New Project (to complete for client) VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Very nice! And then the work began, and here are the first 2 (believe it or not) trips around:

They don’t look like much but due to the pattern and large circumference took hours and hours! Each little circling of that hole you see at the hem is 24 double treble crochets all the way around (I think 22 of them) + the pineapple chains in between, x 2 rows!

So, for each double treble stitch (one row= 24x22 double trebles) here are the instructions:

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1. Yarn over hook three times, then insert hook into next stitch.
2. Yarn over hook and draw yarn through stitch (there are five loops on the hook).
3. Loop yarn over hook and draw through two loops (there are now four loops remaining on the hook).
4. Yarn over hook and draw through two loops (there are now three loops remaining on the hook).
5. Yarn over hook and draw through two loops (there are now two loops remaining on the hook).
6. Again, loop yarn over hook and draw through the last two loops on the hook (there is now one loop remaining.)
7. This completes one double treble crochet.

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Double treble is a fun stitch that adds the needed fan appearance on top of each pineapple. But since adding whole pineapples at that point would’ve involved *far* too much time/hourly expense, Gayle and I opted for a nice finish that was a little lace border. Here is more of it, but then a final finishing row pulled the pineapple tips down a little more, which you see below in the last photos:

		More of the Lace Edging VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Once the hand work is done, it’s time to clean the piece. I enzyme-washed the cloth and then block stretched it to shape it. It dried overnight. I actually blocked it twice because after the first time, I was not happy with the level of lightening on some of the dark brown “rust” stains so I spot-treated them to get them lighter and lighter, carefully using various stain removing agents. If you attempt this at home, I would suggest you do your research first, as there are plenty of times I won’t clean an item and instead will refer people to a textile cleaner I know. Too much room for error, in my opinion.Below are the dark spotted areas. Overall, because the cloth was stored in plastic, there was a lot of yellowing that would come out in the wash:

		Stained Areas VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

And now for the finish! Here are the results! Nice and white-clean, and with a little border that looks feminine. It fits on a round 4-seater table or I’ve shown it on a little parlor table.

Pineapple Tablecloth Completed and Cleaned VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL