Tag: sewing projects

Home Decor, Sewing

Let’s Sew! Making a Balloon Curtain for the Kitchen

French Ethereal

Happy March, everyone! This past weekend while I was recouping from eye surgery (cataract), I worked inside making this balloon curtain. Making one is super easy and here’s how to do it!

I found this inspirational fabric at Hobby Lobby (Slate “Friend” print cotton calico, #1415181) after my first follow-up appointment at the eye doctor this past Thursday. Gramma Gini was driving since I wasn’t allowed to be out driving yet, and we didn’t feel like going right home, so we went browsing for French toile fabric.

I didn’t find the fabric I was looking for but instead I found this soft brownish-grey, almost a toile, instead…

I’ve loved seeing words cut out and hung on other bloggers’ walls or sitting on their fireplace mantels, but I haven’t really got into all that… until now! This is my attempt at adding words in our kitchen. 🙂

How to make a balloon curtain

I have written this as if the reader has never sewn, so bear with me if some of this is repetitive. Feel free to jump ahead if you are more experienced! 🙂

  • I bought 3 yards of fabric for this project. When you make a balloon shade/curtain, you will need three panels of the same width and length.
  • I washed and dried my fabric, then cut the 3 yards in half crosswise to have two beginning panels the same length of 1 1/2 yards (54″).
  • Next, cut both pieces of fabric lengthwise down the center of each piece, creating four lengths of equal width fabric.
  • Choose three pieces and seam them together lengthwise: If you wish to make French seams, begin by sewing on the right-sides out ~ sewing a 2/8″ seam.
  • Iron the seam flat, then place right-sides together (the normal way one creates a seam). Sew a 3/8″ seam on the wrong side encasing the first 2/8″ seam. This closes the first seam inside the final seam so no selvage shows. Very clean! (see photo above)
  • Sew both side seams, turning under 1/4″ once, twice. Sew along the turned-under edge.
  • Make a header next by first ironing under 1/4″, then turn a second time 2 5/8″. I began with an extra 5 1/4″ of fabric to create the rod pocket and small ruffle.
  • Sew close to the turned under edge and a second seam 1 1/2″ from this lower edge. This leaves 1″ at the top for a small ruffle when the curtain is gathered along the curtain rod. To prevent “pulling,” sew from the middle outward in one direction, and sew the rest of the top-stitching from the middle outward in the opposite direction.

My sewing machine has measuring lines on either side of the metal sewing plate (see photo below) and also along slide-on table, which I slid onto my machine’s sewing arm.

  • This creates a rod pocket for a 1″ curtain rod with a 5/8″ ruffle along the very top of the curtain once run on the rod.
  • Sew a 1″ hem at the bottom of the curtain with 1/4″ ironed under first. (For a curtain without a ruffle).
  • If adding a ruffle, cut the remaining 4th panel of fabric into 5 1/2″ strips width-wise. Seam those together on the wrong side, then iron in half width-wise, right side out.
  • Sew a basting line 1/4″ from the upper edge of the ruffle and a second baste line 3/8″ from the same edge. Don’t do the “sew from the middle” here. No need as you want the pulling effect. *Sewing from the middle works really well for clothing to keep it from pulling around you, feeling uncomfortable when a garment is worn.
  • Pull the bottom threads and adjust your gathers to the fit the bottom edge of the curtain. Pin to the curtain.
  • Sew a 1/2″ seam at the bottom of the curtain after gathering the ruffle. Iron the seam flat towards the curtain. Tack the seam just to the bottom of the vertical seams, in those four locations.

Note: Here I’ve added the gathering rings. The lowest rings were too far down (shown in the photograph) and I removed them and moved them up two inches higher so the ruffle could be seen when the curtain is hanging.

I am getting a little ahead of myself but you’ll see more of these rings below. 😉

My inspiration

Years ago I found these pink rose curtains at Mervyn’s department store (went out of business sometime during the 1990’s, during a recession), and hung them at my first home in California.

I remember buying them one or two panels at a time as I couldn’t afford to buy them all at once! I think each panel cost $14.00 at the time. Maybe they were more, but I’d wait for a sale. 😉

These balloon curtain panels came with these slotted rings to gather up each row of rings making gathering each balloon curtain soooo much easier than adding strings and trying to pull them all correctly.

I tried looking at Joann Fabrics but found none of these special rings. I brought home little lobster claws to try but they were too tiny to gather four rings into each claw. They will go back to the store.

So, I “borrowed” four of these slotted rings from my inspiration panel to gather my freshly created Friend curtain.

In my stash of things, I had leftover large and small rings from when I made a blue calico balloon curtain for our USMC Camp Pendleton, California duplex we lived in when Mr. Ethereal was promoted to Captain. We lived on base for two years in that nice duplex! (1989-1991)

This is how I know about pulling the strings and trying to get them equally pulled across the curtain… ugh! You had to tie the bunch of strings off to one side to a hook thing mounted on the wall.

It was crazy…

Reshowing for reference 😉
  • For this curtain, I needed 16 rings for the whole curtain, with four across and four down. Begin them at the bottom of the header rod pocket and sew them to each of the side seams and middle French seams.
  • Sew the second, third and fourth rows, spacing evenly apart. My panel ended up being 48″ from the header hem to the ruffle seam (Sorry, I forgot to show!). Fix the bottom row of rings as needed to make a curtain ruffle show when hung in the window.

I am really pleased with how this balloon curtain turned out! Mr. Ethereal helped by hanging the curtain rod hangers on the wall about four or five inches above the window opening (maybe higher).

I wanted to let in a lot of light yet still have a lot of drape to the curtain, hence why we hung them so high on the wall. With balloon curtains, you can hook up all of the rings or less, depending upon the look you desire!

Love how this balloon curtain dresses up this window! Jewelry for the finished kitchen and its new paint job!!

Let me know if you’ve ever made balloon curtains before and if you have found these special slit rings. I’d love to know a good source and what they are actually called. Gini thought that I might find some at an upholstery shop. I might go searching as we have this week off from school.

Happy spring!!!

Happy sewing, dear friends,

Barb 🙂

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Share Your Style #255

French Ethereal
Welcome to Share Your Style #255!  This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post and join my small but loyal band of followers. I appreciate you! As always, I am glad that you are here… 💝

We had 90 degree temps here this past weekend and summer weather is definitely coming to Texas!!! We had some rain this past week also which was a blessing for helping to water plants. Gardening is definitely on my brain this week and this week’s features are slanted that way.

And with kids getting out of virtual school here soon and the economy opening back up (at least a little), here’s to summer picnics, camping and getting to travel a bit!


I am Barbara Chapman your host and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too.  Thank you! 😉 


Here’s what I shared this week at

French Ethereal…

My Little French Café ~ part of my virtual travel series this spring.

And here are this week’s featured posts…

20200324_150946


Cindy of Cloches and Lavender shared her Basket Change this past week and it looks trés français with its new jaunty look! Check out Cindy’s lovely French style and the changes she’s planning for summer.

 Early spring herbs, spring flowers, spring blooms, daffodils, tulips, azaleas

Amber over at Follow the Yellow Brick Home shared a pretty bloom-filled post ~ Early Spring Herbs and Blooms. So much gardening inspiration!





“Urning” the third spot is this pretty post from Debra of Common Ground who shares a refresh of her front entryway ~ love it! ~ Entry Urn for Spring. Aren’t these lambs adorable?!! Love the whites…

Penny of Penny’s Treasures shared a makeover of one of her garden sheds that she and her husband turned into… Prayer Room. If you haven’t seen the movie, War Room, this post reminds me of the movie… A good place to pray for our families, our country, our world, for those around us to find comfort and healing. The list goes on… So appropriate for tomorrow’s National Day of Prayer! Thank you, Penny!! 💕


Honorable Mention

The Hungry Mountaineer (in Big Bear, California!) shared a wonderful trip to Italy just before COVID-19 broke out there (the writer and her husband were just home) in this post featuring pics from their trip and a recipe for Almond-Crusted Pistachio Pesto Dover Sole With Ricotta. Delicious and you’ll love the photos… More armchair travels!!! Sorry the photos wouldn’t import!

Thank you to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank-you to y’all for sharing Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 


If you have been featured here at Share Your Style… 


Here is a button to copy to your site and to your featured posts, if you like! I’d love it if you’d link back that you were featured. 





If you’d like to follow my Share Your Style board on Pinterest I’d sure appreciate it, thank you! I do post the featured posts from each week there.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter




Party on, friends!

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How to Make a T-Shirt Quilt

French Ethereal

Back in the 1970’s  when country style and quilts had a resurgence in popularity, looking in one’s closet for handmade quilts that Grandma or an elderly aunt had sewn was really “big” and in fashion. Quilts have been stitched by hand only since time immemorial and later were machine and hand-stitched when treadle sewing machines became available to the public from the late 1800’s onward. Throughout the Depression Era and into the 1940’s, sewing quilts out of bits of leftover fabric and worn out clothing was an essential skill of women and young girls in most households ~ reuse and recycling fabrics was what everyone did!


Here is the beginning of the t-shirt layout. First I just randomly cut each
t-shirt then later I went in and squared up each front and back to the correct size.


In the spirit of all the seamstresses before me who recycled their clothing into lovely log cabin, May basket and flower quilts, I am sharing a display quilt I began during the 2019 summer and finished at Christmas-time.  Using t-shirts my son either won or we bought for him while he was pole vaulting and running cross-country during his high school years, this was a gift he asked me to make and I was happy to finish it over six months. Let’s get quilting, friends!…


The Time Travelers sewing group meets at our local library once a month.
It all began with a request from my son Peter for a t-shirt quilt made from his old track and field t-shirts. His mother-in-law had made one for Justine, his then girlfriend, while she was still in college; I remember it hanging in her college bedroom in a flat she, Peter and another girlfriend shared their junior year at the University of South Dakota.

So how do you plan a t-shirt quilt like this?

Begin with a drawing as you lay out your shirt pieces of how you think you’d like your quilt to look when finished. Decide where you’d like certain colors, shirts for different school years or events, etc.

Use a quilting square and cutting mat to make each t-shirt the size you need ~ here most of these shirts were cut to 12″ – 15″ square.

This is the back of part of the quilt with interfacing ironed and sewn on and into top, bottom and side seams. This is also where I added 4″ finished cowboy fabric strips to have a place for “extra” t-shirt memorabilia to be sewn ~ i.e. signatures of Olympians and semi-famous pole vaulters from sports camps.
Iron on stabilizing Pellon interfacing to give support to each t-shirt then begin seaming shirts together and also seaming to support fabric pieces.

I used 10 yards of a 1940’s style cowboy barkcloth fabric which was originally supposed to be four curtains in our son’s room as he was growing up (that obviously never happened!). The barkcloth was perfect for its overall thickness when each t-shirt was fused to its interfacing as both fabrics had the same weight. I used the cowboy barkcloth to create quilting strips and for the quilt back. There was just enough!
;)’


Keep “tweaking” your pieces and add in extra additional fabric to make all the t-shirts fit. In this quilt I began with all the most important events centered in the very middle of the quilt. From there I added Peter’s freshman year t-shirts at the top, followed by his sophomore years shirts. The senior and junior years followed below that, more or less, with the senior year (his best year) the main focus on the row below the central square as would be seen when hanging on a wall or over a banister. 


       

  

How do you machine sew these big pieces together?

I began by sewing my cowboy fabric horizontal strips to each set of t-shirts groups in horizontal rows, then I began sewing one row to the row below it.

Here you can see where I am sewing the top two rows of t-shirts to the center section rows. The bottom rows of fabrics are underneath for reference.

Never having sewed this kind of a quilt before but having worked on handmade quilts with a sewing group while we were stationed at Camp Pendleton, this seemed like the best plan.


When seaming vertical fabric groups into the main quilt, you’ll have to roll your fabric in order to keep sewing, as shown here.

Here is the semi-finished quilt top laid out and ready for final additions and ready to be joined to the batting and quilt backing.

Because the t-shirts and backing fabrics were mostly 100% cotton, I chose this all natural cotton batting for this quilt. It needs to be washed and dried first (as part of its instructions) and that created one tear in the batting while in the washing process.




How to finish the quilt?

Measure across horizontally and vertically to get final measurements and decide whether you can live with it being slightly out of perfectly square/rectangular or not. Adjust the outer edges by cutting off pieces as necessary.

For this quilt I literally took my cutting board and placed it underneath the entire quilt while on the floor and used the rolling cutter and trimmed the edges there.


Finish by making a self-made seam binding of the backing fabric ~ or this can be a contrasting fabric if you prefer. The seam binding will start out as about 3″ wide strips that will be sewn together, ironed in half width-wise, then turn in each half and iron down again (seen best in the left-hand photo below).
🙂




Begin at one corner and work around the quilt sandwiching all the fabric in-between the binding. Miter the corners (right photo) of the quilt by folding in parts of the binding to create pretty folded  “hospital corners” on each upper and lower edge. Hand sew to the front and back quilt pieces going through the batting, too, once in a while. The batting will mostly be sewn into the quilt in the next step.



Hand baste the top through the bottom fabric to stabilize all the fabrics together (you can also just use safety pins). Machine sew “in the ditch” of each and every vertical and horizontal seam sewing through the quilt top, batting and quilt backing.

If you prefer to quilt as your ancestors did long ago, then by all mean enjoy hand-quilting! My mother-in-law hand-stitched our wedding ring quilt out of left-over pieces from my bridesmaids’ dresses using a PVC quilter’s frame she bought and had set up in their living room for months.



It was a labor of love and I still appreciate her hard work every time we place this quilt on our bed each year… 



I won’t kid you, there is a lot of work involved in sewing a big quilt like this and I took two months just noodling the idea for the design from June to August. Then I began sewing in earnest and finished at just at Christmas-time.

Peter is very happy with his quilt and hopefully one day his track and field quilt can hang beside that of his wife’s. For now, he will have it draped over the queen bed in the spare bedroom.
🙂


Here is a final view of the cowboy barkcloth backing fabric ~ two 80″ long panels seamed together down the center of the quilt. Two lengths were cut off both sides and will be used to make a little quilt for Baby C as he grows up. A few t-shirts didn’t make it into the big quilt so those might end up in Baby C’s room, too…
😉



Sharing with
Thursday Favorite Things ~ Follow the Yellow Brick Home
Share Your Style
Friday at the Fire Station ~ A Fireman’s Wife







Happy sewing, friends!
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Make It ~ A Little Quilt for Baby

French Ethereal

As you may know our first grandchild, a little boy called “Baby C” right now, is due here this spring in early April. For Peter and Justine’s baby shower, I thought about my “go-to” baby project  ~ an adorable, soft and cuddly baby quilt!

Whenever I hear of a friend or family member who is having a baby shower, I like to make a baby quilt for the family’s coming bundle of joy. So today I am sharing how to make a double-sided baby quilt using two fleece fabrics…




Supplies needed to sew a baby quilt

  • (2) 1 1/4 yards of coordinating fleece fabrics or make your quilt with (1) fleece and (1) cotton fabric of choice. Can make the quilt longer, too, if so desired.
  • one spool of sewing thread to match quilt’s main color
  • 1 1/4 yards thin polyester baby batting for warmth inside the quilt
  • embroidery floss to coordinate with the quilt for ties
  • hand-sewing needle with a large eye
  • sewing machine

How to sew your quilt

  • Begin with washing, drying and ironing both fabrics. 
  • Measure across the two selvages of each fabric to get the final width.
  • Cut the length to match the quilt width if you would like a square baby quilt. 
  • Cut the batting to the same size as the length.


  • Sew batting (basting stitch) to the wrong side of one of the outer fabrics.


  • Next, place the right sides of the outer fabrics together, pin.
  • Sew from the middle of the top to each outer edge ~ this creates a better pull and less movement of the top piece.
  • Sew both sides downward towards bottom of quilt.


  • Sew bottom of quilt. Leave an opening wide enough near the middle of the quilt bottom for turning.


  • Turn quilt and using a pencil eraser, push out each of the four corners. 


  • Press quilt with a warm iron and press under the remaining fabric of the opening.
  • Hand-stitch the opening closed.


Adding the ties

  • Pick out a pretty embroidery floss to use as your ties. Thread the needle with about 36″ of floss.


  • Look at your quilt and decide how many ties you would like going across and down the quilt. This can be done by either eyeballing or by taking the quilt’s measurements and dividing by the number of ties across you’d like. This will give you approximately how many inches you need to mark across and down for tie placement.


  • Mark tie placement with quilter’s pins or with sewing chalk.
  • Push the threaded needle through the fabrics from front to back, then back up to the front with a small gap between both lengths of floss.


  • Tie each tie several times so the baby won’t be able to undo them.
  • Cut off each tie with just a 1/4″ of floss left. This fluffs really prettily in the washer and is not long enough to choke a baby.



This is pretty much all there is to making a soft fleecy baby quilt!
I made this kind of quilt for my own children when they were infants and later I made each a tooth fairy pillow to go with their quilts. I’ll show you how to make one of those in another post…
😉

I think “Baby C” will love it!!! Hope you will sew one
for your upcoming baby soon!





Happy sewing!
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We Interrupt This Program… An Update

French Ethereal
Hello, Everyone! Share Your Style will be back next week Wednesday highlighting all the features you linked up last week. I wasn’t quite able to get it all together this week in time…



As you may or may not know, I have been sewing a quilt for my son using most of the t-shirt we collected during his high school track and field career. It is a big project which I began in early June and I just need to quilt it now. It’ll be machine quilting so it should go smoothly.  



I am also sewing a dress for a Downton Abbey-Roaring 1920’s themed IOOF meeting and dinner this upcoming weekend. So… with that, I haven’t had time to pick this week’s features.

Share Your Style will be back in its usual spot next week! Thank you for linking up and for understanding. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends and just couldn’t quite get everything done.
🙂



Sharing with
Inspired by Elegance and Mommyhood ~ Shelbee on the Edge
Friday at the Fire Station #132 ~ A Fireman’s Wife



Have a great week!
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Sunday Sentiments ~ A Special Cross-Stitch Bible Cover

French Ethereal
Cross-stitch, needlepoint, knitting and handsewing projects were what I used to do every evening while watching a movie or television from my mid-teens into my 30’s. As I was putting small boxes of craft supplies away this past week, I looked in the bamboo sewing basket my husband shipped back to me for Christmas in 1991 and I found a lost treasure. 

Here is its story…


  

Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! ~ Job 19:23

Worked on  14-count Aida cloth over a summer and probably into fall and winter in my late 30’s, this Bible cover was one of the last projects I made in cross-stitch. My children were very young then as this was the later 1990’s ~ a time when I was off-work for eight years where I just enjoyed being with the kids.

Amy, baby Peter and cousin Corey circa 1995.
I wasn’t volunteering yet in their classrooms as they weren’t yet elementary school-age. Our daughter was in pre-school three days a week and eventually our son went twice a week as he turned three.
A photo of a photo (hence the wonky edges!) ~ Breakfast at our first home,
about 1996.
I attended a weekly Bible study at our church in California on Tuesday mornings and the kids went to fun daycare there or to their preschool. During a few summers we helped run a weeklong children’s summer Bible camp at the church and one summer at our house for local children to attend. 
Those were fun days!
My love of soft pastels haven’t changed over the years… and roses!
I remember I didn’t size this Bible cover then to fit my Bible because I had found this angel zip cover one instead. It had a pocket to hold papers given out at weekly services plus it zipped closed. The beautiful cover stayed preserved in my sewing box all these years until coming out this week. 
Perhaps with a pretty French toile print inside that I have had stored away as well, this cover would look lovely as more of a display piece instead of for an everyday working Bible. We have an older Bible which is falling apart and this cover would be perfect to cover it! 
Bringing beauty to something now shabby making it lovely again…
Sharing with
All About Home ~ Follow the Yellow Brick Home
Friendship Friday ~ Create with Joy
Happy Sunday!

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How to Make Your Own Valentine Table Linens

French Ethereal
Valentine’s Day is… the perfect time to create a pretty sparkly heart-strewn tablecloth and napkin set to grace your special someone’s Valentine’s table.

Going out on Valentine’s Day is not always high on everyone’s list due to overcrowded restaurants and even less parking. Creating your own beautiful table with handmade linens is a fun and inexpensive way to liven up a Valentine’s Day party at home…

Affiliate links provided for your convenience. If you do
make a purchase I will earn a small amount, thank you!
Please click HERE to read my full disclosure.

Make your own Valentine’s table linens

Start with some really pretty fabric like these
found at Joann Fabrics:  

A few years ago I made these Valentine’s napkins and tablecloth for a tea I was having while we were still in our last home in California. Then last year I found a book on napkin folding and set a tea table for that.

Since I don’t have that other Valentine’s table linen set here with us currently I thought I’d make another…
And here we are!
😉

Sewing instructions

Measure your tablecloth fabric and cut off any excess to create a perfect square, in this case my tablecloth began as 43″ with selvage and finished is 42″ square.  1 1/4 yards usually gives you a 45″ square but all fabric shrinks differently; be sure to wash your fabric before sewing. 
Turn under your edges and miter the corners by cutting off about 1/4″ on the diagonal ~ this takes away the bulky corner when you are sewing.
Press under 1/4″ all the way around then press under a second time to enclose the raggedy edges of each side, pin as necessary. Hem stitch your seam on the right side from 1/8″ to a scan 1/4″ away from the fold with a regular straight stitch or any decorative stitch you would like. Be sure the seam catches all the edges inside and go back and restitch sections as necessary. {This is where a good seam ripper comes in handy!}
Make your napkins the same way ~ here you can see all the turned edges ready to be hemmed.
Press your tablecloth and napkins once more and you are ready for a party!
I’ll be sharing more of this Valentine’s table linen set and the tablescape I created to share with Mr. Ethereal tomorrow for a Tablescape Thursday post. Stop back by to see the table then!

(And remember that Share Your Style goes up tonight at 7:00pm EST/6:00pm CST/4:00pm PST.)

Sharing with



Happy sewing!
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Painting and Slipcovering Furniture for an Updated Look

French Ethereal
I love  the look of painted furniture and several years ago
I finally got around to painting four of our six French style
dining room chairs plus our coffee table a lovely soft white.
I’m thinking of working soon on refinishing a little black cabinet
here soon so…
Today I thought we’d talk a little about redoing furniture
to give a tired piece of furniture a brand new look!
🙂

In the background, you can see one of the unpainted stained caned chairs to the right of our little china cabinet with flowers in a French style tin.  The other I kept up in our bedroom next to my French style Drexel desk.  🙂
Painting furniture  is pretty easy to do with the right tools
and really all it takes is some sandpaper, a paint brush, your favorite can of paint and a little elbow grease!
I know I’ve shared about repainting furniture here before but
each time I talk about it it’s from a little bit of
a different angle.
🙂


Here you can see lots of bits of sanded wood along the chair’s seat top ~ I really enjoy sanding
as it’s something really relaxing to do!

Here’s what you do


Grab some 60-100 grit sandpaper and using a small palm sander or a sanding block sand down all the areas to be painted on your furniture piece ~ this removes the previous wax, varnish or polyurethane finish and will work down through to and remove
the stain, too.
Be gentle when working around any carved detailing as it’s
really easy to smooth it off.
{Ask me how I know this… ;)}


The nice thing about using just sandpaper and NOT using a
chemical remover to take off existing varnish is that there is nothing that has to be thrown away at a special waste site as
may have to be done with some removers.


Afterwards wipe your chair with a clean damp rag to
remove all the sanding dust.
Lightly sand with 220 grit sandpaper a second time if
you want your piece to feel really smooth once it’s finished.

Perfect paint

Most woodworkers paint “with the grain” but sometimes this is
hard to do around carved details so be forgiving with yourself
if around details your paint looks a bit swirly.
A nice wax finish after your paint dries gently rubbed into and around these carved details will buff out any of this
“ugly part” that happens while painting plus really make these details really pop.
On these chairs I painted two light coats of paint and lightly sanded with 220 grit sandpaper in between the two coats of paint.
After the second coat dried I sanded back to reveal a little
of the original wood and leftover stain giving them a
Shabby Chic look then finished them with a clear wax finish.






Recently I was reading how Cindy of Edith and Evelyn Vintage
added several layers to create a beautifully painted
pink French table.
She used several layers of different chalk paints then sanded back
between coats and lastly waxed this sweet table to give it its museum quality look.
Check out the link above to see more of her lovely pink table and how she created this look plus to visit her lovely website.
🙂

The top of the table was going back to its original 1980’s look… Definitely an ugly phase for this poor table!  Love the way
the legs turned out but eventually that washed off, too.  🙁
For the  coffee table I used a wash of white paint with the paint cut down 1/3 with water.
After sanding off the original poly finish and sanding back to the light pine stain the table had that 1990’s white in the grain look
I was trying to achieve.
Above is the first incarnation of this table before I worked
on it a second time.
I made the mistake of NOT waxing it with a clear coat so when
I’d go and clean it the paint would wash off ~ hence why it’s
important to add some kind of wax or polyurethane to seal in
the color and look you’ve created.

Same table with more white repainted on it and lightly sanded over the detailing. 

This coffee table has had three lives so far and I don’t see why

it can’t have another once it gets here to Texas!
I love its size and it’s perfect for putting your feet on and for
serving and with some TLC and a new paint job
it’ll be loved again.

Making slipcovers  for your furniture has the wonderful benefit of creating a totally different look while not changing the actual furniture’s underlying design and fabric.
Slipcovers are great in that they can easily be whipped off
when in need of washing, they update furniture without making
permanent changes which sometimes we are torn about doing
when using paint or recovering a piece, and they can be
created in any number of ways to suit one’s taste.

Last year I shared How to Make a Slipcover in three parts
 here, here and the reveal here.  Slipcovers can be very trendy
and help to update our homes to whatever style
we currently like.

One of two sofa slipcovers made to give our living room a totally different look.  Here’s a better look at the refinished coffee table with its second paint job.


Ruffles and pleats change the entire look of a slipcover such as in these sofa slipcovers I made several years ago out of drop cloths.
Here below you can see the original settee opposite and how both
sofas were covered in floral fabrics.


Adding or not adding piping around the slipcover’s edges
adds another layer to the look.

Here I’ve done both:
The slipcover on the couch has piping trim added to the back of the sofa upper seat {not seen but on its backside} as well as piping along the seat bottom and arms for added
definition and durability.

On the seat covers I did not add piping as I thought it would clash
with the piping already on the underneath fabric, just visible along
the front of the seat edges.

Sorry for the dark photo!  I was just learning how to use our Canon camera when I took this photograph.

On trend

On the  easy chair above I used piping along the chair’s matelasse back pillow edging like the original cover had.
Piping creates a really clean and contemporary look that works
well with all furniture styles making a piece always look
up-to-date and fashionable.

Piping also has the added benefit of stabilizing fabric seams making
a chair’s seams really durable ~ good on furniture which get
a lot of use.

If you’d like to put piping on your next recovering or pillow project read how to make piping or welting here.



Next time  you look to paint or recover a former favorite chair remember these paint and slipcovering tips. Redoing a piece of furniture to suit your current tastes and how your home looks now is a fun to-do project and really makes that once tired piece of furniture a favorite once again.

Recycling at its finest ~ always a good thing.
😉




Sharing with
Snickerdoodle Create Make Bake ~ Shoppe No. 5
Inspire Me Monday ~ Create with Joy
Style Showcase ~ Shabbyfufu
Totally Terrific Tuesday ~ Savvy Apron
Inspire Me Tuesday ~ A Stroll Thru Life
Waste Not Wednesday ~ Fairies and Fauna
Friday Features ~ Oh, My Heartsie Girl!
Keep In Touch ~ Let’s Add Sprinkles
Talk of the Town ~ My Repurposed Life
*Feathered Nest Friday ~ French Country Cottage
Courtney’s beautiful book is out this week!
Stop by to check it out then order yours.
🙂
Sew It Cook It Craft It ~ Sew Historically
Friday at the Fire Station ~ A Fireman’s Wife
Saturday Sparks ~ Pieced Pastimes
Edge of the Week ~ Shelby on the Edge





Update:
This post was featured at
Keep In Touch #33 ~ Let’s Add Sprinkles!!!
Thank you, Katie! 
😀


Happy decorating,

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Uncategorized

How to Make a French Toile Tablecloth ~ Part 2

French Ethereal

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Last time  we left off at shiplap joining the middle seam
between the two halves of this tablecloth and today
we will work on finishing it!
🙂


How to Piece together Toile (cont.)

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Once   the seam is joined flip the fabric over to the
wrong side and press towards either the right or left.
Here I’ve pressed my seam left {very top of photo}.

*Here’s the link to Part 1.
🙂




Turn right side up and top stitch close to the main seam.
{Shown here on the right side of this photograph.}

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Turn wrong side up again and *grade the seam allowance then roll the top piece of fabric underneath.
Press again.
{Lower part of the photo.}
🙂
*Grading a seam allowance takes out the bulk taking the bottom selvage piece
down to 3/8″ and the upper 5/8″ selvage can then wrap around it easily.
This creates nicely finished seams with no frayed edges showing.


Turn the fabric right side up one final time and topstitch
1/4″ from the first topstitching.
{Shown on the left side of the above photograph;
I was doing two things at once in these photos ~
hence why I’m sharing both pics twice.}

Sizing your tablecloth into a square


Take your cloth and lay on a table or on the floor right side up.
Fold the cloth horizontally and matching the sewn seam ~
making the uncut top and bottom pieces meet up
at the shorter lengths.

Here the fabric is folded horizontally matching the vertical seam stacked on top of each other ~
shown on the very left edge of the table above.

Now cut off the extra fabric that extends beyond like the
photograph below:
The extra fabric from the top and bottom are cut away {here folded over ready to cut away}.

 Once the extra fabric is removed from the top and bottom
measure the height of the tablecloth.
This gives you your final measurement for what to cut
from the sides of the tablecloth.


You can cut this square two different ways

1) Measure from top to bottom ~ this is the measurement you
will divide and mark for the side seams beginning
horizontally from the center of the seam to each side.

Mark the measurements outward from the seam ~ one set at the
top and one at the bottom of the left and right halves
of the tablecloth.
On mine I measured 31″ on the left side and another 31″
on the right side.

Draw a line from top to bottom on the left and again on
the right sides and cut off this extra fabric.




2) A different and less measuring intensive way to do this
is by folding the fabric on top of a large table or the floor
into a large rectangle.

Do this by first folding horizontally aligning the vertical seam
as before when removing the extra top and bottom fabric.
Finger press the seam as the photograph shows above.

Then fold the fabric left side across to the right side ~ there
will be a little less on the top side with the fold
but then you’ll cut off a little more from the bottom piece
{as shown in the next photograph where the top piece
is lifted up}.
This creates “the square” as you can see in the above
photograph.

Now measure the amount need to cut off on the sides; remove.
This second way is really faster as the large mass of fabric
is in a smaller size and easier to deal with.
The resulting large piece is a nice square without
the hassle of laying out lines and possible mistakes.
🙂
My ruffle inspiration ~ this Shabby Chic tablecloth.  I love the ruffles’ seam showing on the outside!


Making a Ruffle

If you’d like to create a ruffle for your French toile de Jouy tablecloth, begin with measuring the area of your “square.”

Mine at 62″ x 62″ square {31″ left and right halves plus the same vertically}:
Area = length x 4 or 62 + 62 + 62 + 62″ = 248″
Yours may be different.

Ruffles are usually 1.5x – 2x the area in length
so this tablecloth’s area doubled would be 496″.

When I went back to the store to buy more fabric there
was only 1.75 yards, so I divided 45″ width into 496″ and
this boiled down to a ruffle width of 5.75″ for each piece.
6 pieces could be cut out of 36″/1 yard of fabric.
I was able to cut 10 widths.

Seam these together at each end, all figures facing the correct
way and making one long piece.

Fold under the top 3/4″ and press along this top edge from
the wrong side of the fabric.

Double turn under the lower edge, press and sew this
bottom seam.
{I chose to do this later.  I’m sorry I didn’t take any
photographs at this stage for you!  🙁  }

The ruffle is ready to pin onto the tablecloth edges.
Begin by figuring out how many pieces will fit on a side ~
mine with 10 pieces/4 sides = 2.5 pieces per side.
Pin one edge from the left corner and count the pieces and pin
to the next corner.

Pull the fabric from the very middle of the ruffle and pin
to the middle of this tablecloth edge.
Keep halving the pieces over and over until it is all pinned.

Move to the next side and repeat.

For more detailed photographs click here in the post
I wrote last summer when making our chair covers.
Here you can see the beginning of the pinning.
Sneak peek at an upcoming table setting post…
Sew the seam with the ruffle edge to the outside and pull
pins as you go.
This does take some time but once you get the first seam in
if you want to a second seam can be added like in
the inspiration piece.
And that’s it!


Sharing with
Wow ~ Savvy Southern Style
Feathered Nest Friday
Create Bake Grow and Gather




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Until next time,
Uncategorized

How to Piece Together a Toile Tablecloth ~ Part 1

French Ethereal
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Toile de Jouy  is so quintessentially French… but did you know that this fabric that tells a story with its printed pictures
actually began its life in Ireland???
Yes, yes it did!

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Quickly  the fabric became popular in England and France
whereby in the town of Jouy-en-Josas, a suburb of Paris,
toile was being made and soon it became synonymous with the French.

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So today  I’m going to show you how to piece together this beautiful fabric into the beginnings of a tablecloth
for your home.

Our dining table set up for a fall tea using our 70″ round Shabby Chic rose tablecloth ~ a favorite!

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My oak table  in storage is 55″ square and a 70″ square or
circular tablecloth drapes nicely over it as you can see here.
Perhaps you’ve thought that placing a round cloth on a square
table might look strange but I think it looks charming ~ 
especially with a large ruffle like this one has here.

So while Hubby was outside cooking some carne asada
on our little grill for dinner
I was busy working on piecing this new tablecloth.
{No, actually, this is from the day before. I got our fixings
together while he cooked.}
I just wanted to share a cute picture of Mr. Ethereal.
😉

How to Piece together Toile

First of course you have to know how long and wide
your table is, add the drop around the edge of the table
and any extra fabric you might like if adding a pleated
skirting around the tablecloth’s edging
to know what your finished length will be.

Double that and with any repeat patterned fabric
look at the repeat and add one more repeat or at least
a part for matching.
This goes for matching plaids, too.

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Count your repeats ~ I had ten as I had the store clerk cut
3.5 yards of this Waverly toile de Jouy.
Since I’d like to use this as a set of tablecloth plus napkins
I also bought another 1.5 yards of a coordinating fabric.


Pick something that you can use as your reference on
each repeat ~ in this case I used a flower along
the fabrics selvage edge.

Draw a line across your fabric through or under your
reference point.
Don’t worry that the pattern might not be printed totally
on the grain ~ it’s okay.
My pattern was just slightly off grain and it isn’t going
to be that big a deal once the fabric is hemmed.


Now the part that takes patience

Find where your selvage when turned under will line up
with the repeat vertically across the second piece of fabric.
Turn and match by overlapping all the way down the fabric.
{This is where it is important to have leftover fabric.}

Since the selvage has holes where the loom or printing machine stretches the fabric and moves it along as a huge roller rolls over
and prints the design onto the fabric,
these holes are perfect for using as a turning and sewing guide!
Sew close to the turned edge and in my case I am going to sew
down the second set of holes.

Press before or after sewing with pins in place.

Don’t cut the remaining fabric from the top and bottom
just yet.
🙂


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Shiplap the seam  by flipping to the wrong side and turning
under the selvage, pressing, then sewing from the right side
to the left of the first seam about 1/4″.
Shiplapping will sew along the turned under edge creating
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a finished underneath seam to prevent unraveling
just as you always finish your seams.


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Just a quick photo  sharing our chandelier
and little dining room as I was beginning this project.
Thought you’d like a sneak peak at the chandy
now working! 


Sharing with
Really Crafty Link Party ~ Keeping It Real
Blogging Fifty
Dishing It and Digging It
Beautifully Made ~ My Husband Has Too Many Hobbies
*New link party!
Inspire Me Monday ~ Create with Joy
Make It Pretty Monday ~ The Dedicated House
Wow ~ Savvy Southern Style
Feathered Nest Friday
Beautifully Made #7
See you Wednesday for part 2,