Dining Room Chairs Make-over

This past weekend, I helped a friend cover her dining room chairs.  They are at least 30 years old.

Here are the "befores"...

Old, slightly faded fabric. The wood still looks pretty good.

We just unscrewed 4 screws under each seat, and took out hundreds of staples.

 

And the "afters"...

Using the old covers as a pattern, I cut the fabric to size and stitched a small seam in the front corners.  The foam cushion was still in good shape, so we just covered the seat, flipped it over and started stapling. 

 

I also removed the old cording and peeled the old fabric off so that I could re-use it.  I used a zipper foot to cover the cording with the new fabric- first time I've ever done this and it turned out great and was so easy!

Close-up of the cording...

We did six chairs and the final price was less than 40 bucks- beats buying new furniture!

I Heart Hexies!

I have been busy adding to my hexagon quilt which is a slow process- my fingers are quite sore. Here is a little peek... 

But I recently took a break and was inspired to make this bag by a pillow I saw over at Fabric Mutt.  Please check out her site- she has lots of neat tutorials!

This project was fast and easy and uses hexies (my favorite). The navy fabric was quilt that I found at a garage sale last summer that I fully intended to use to make bags. However, I got cold one night last fall and it has been on my bed ever since. The handle used to be curtains. I have enough fabric to make 8 bags- so excited!  Now I just need to decide on a top to finish for a new bed quilt- its going to be 30 degrees this weekend here in sunny Florida.

Heart Baby Quilt with Flannel Back

I found this lovely, easy pattern at Blue Elephant Stitches.  Check out this site- she makes lots of beautiful quilts and takes the nicest pictures! 

I used 3 inch squares from my scrap bin- some of the neutral squares are brighter squares turned over.  Sometimes if you have a medium fabric that isn't dark enough to be considered a dark, you can flip it over and have a light. I have heard of people doing this and now I know it works!

Now, I am a pretty good "piecer" but not a good "quilter."  I can't hand quilt, and my machine quilting stitches are so bunched up and ugly, so I used a floral flannel for the back and no batting.  It goes against everything that I know, but I stretched it on the floor, pinned front to back and "quilted" it on my machine with just the regular quarter inch foot- no walking foot. I did a criss-cross pattern and it turned out sooo good- like a professional-good.

The baby who received this lives in Florida, so it doesn't have to be warm.  I see more no-batting quilts in my future!