After the success of painting the chairs, I have been focussing on upholstering the seat pads and the backs for the last couple of weekends. I have never tried upholstery before, but I can now confirm that you need a lot of patience plus nerves and fingertips of steel!
The seat pads were fairly simple. We added extra padding to the seats with a layer of wadding, and then attached a layer of white fabric (Old sheet is excellent for this if you have one lying around) over the top and attached it in each corner. To cover the pad, I cut a piece of fabric to size, and then pressed a small seam allowance to neaten the edges. To make sure that the fabric is stretched evenly, attach the corners first, using a staple gun (Make sure you have a good quality one, ours was a little old and cranky and we spent the majority of the time removing wobbly and ineffective staples!).
It helps if you have a couple of willing volunteers for this task, as you need a lot of hands to make sure that the fabric tension is correct and it isn't pulling in any strange directions. This isn't so important with a floral or a plain material, but with a stripe it's essential! Neaten the corner sections by pulling each side over the top, and stapling firmly in place. Mark the fabric lightly with a pencil to show where the holes are for screwing the pad back to the chair.
Carefully measure the fabric to make sure you have enough
Two hands are always better than one!
Stapling the fabric in place
Marking the screw holes onto the back of the seat pad
(When it comes to screwing the pad in place, cut the fabric slightly to create a small hole, otherwise the screw will pull the fabric)
The finished pad back in the seat.
The backs of the chairs were a little more difficult to say the least...! To make them easier to remove for cleaning, I decided on an envelope closure with buttons and reinforced with velcro, rather than sewing them directly to the chair. We managed to get three backs completed today, but the fourth defeated us. The last one had a slightly knobbly section on the underside of the back that completely threw out the alignment of the stripes, and we decided it was wise to leave it for another day before we threw it out of the window in anger!
However, before that it all went swimmingly! Using the fabric that we took off as a template, we cut out the fabric and attached interfacing to the inside to give a better finish. We sewed around the curves at the top, and fitted it tightly to the top corners. We pressed the sides of the fabric to the correct width to wrap around the chair, attached the velcro with the ribbon fastening and then covered the buttons for the fastening. We then put the cover onto the chair, wrapped the bottom section up to the top, and then hand sewed the buttons on in the correct place. I am really pleased with the three that we completed, and this is only overshadowed by the defeat of the last one, I hate having to leave a project unfinished for another week!
Covering your own buttons
Cut out the circles of fabric for that you want to use for your buttons using the template on the back of the pack
Sew a loose running stitch around the outside of the circle, making sure that you have a knot in the end of your thread.
Place the button without the back in the middle of the circle
Gather the fabric around the button using the loose thread. Smooth any wrinkles around the edge using your fingers
Make sure that the fabric is as smooth as possible and then snap the back on to the button
Covering the chair backs
Pinning the fabric and interfacing to follow the shape of the corners
Snipping the fabric to smooth the corners
Pressing the sides to fold around the back
Showing the velcro strips and the ribbon fastening for the buttons.
Placing the buttons, checking that the loops are the correct size and then hand sewing to attach
The finished dining room chair with one of the next Sherlock chairs (currently minus its legs!)
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