Upholstery magic

We made a chair seat! Like, from scratch! Oh it's so beautiful. Nobody is allowed to sit on it, only look at it and marvel. This must be what it's like to be proud of a personal achievement because we felt all warm inside and a sort of wistfulness as we chipped in the final tack.

Here are some shoddy pics of the chair taking shape. Don't know why we don't have any of the first stages, so we'll have to explain that bit:

After cutting off the old lino from our charity-shop-chair, a hard-wearing hessian tape was threaded back and forth across the frame of the seat, and pulled through some dewberry which we hoisted between our thighs to pull it super tight. Then this was tacked onto the frame with brass tacks. This formed the skeleton of the chair.

Hessian was then tacked over this and a length of twine was woven across and up to form a loose criss-cross in which to stuff 1lb of acrylic wool.

Then, a sheet of wool wadding was laid loosely across the seat. If the hessian tape is the skeleton which stops your arse falling through, think of the wadding as the muscle and tissues that make it comfy.

Calico was tacked over; a timely and energy-zapping task! The tacks had to at first be loose, then as you pull the calico tighter and tighter, retacked and the wadding and wool slowly moulded into a perfectly smooth seat. It's harder than you'd think! This took two and a bit hours.

After the calico was perfect and the corners finished off, with no excess, the fabric was laid over and secured in the same way. There's a very particular way to do the corners. They have to be right or the seat doesn't go back in the chair!

The under-covering was then attached. Another laborious task; these were the tacks that would show and we wanted it to be perfect. It wasn't easy getting the fabric to lay flat all the way around, and secure it while you are finding the best place for it to line up with the corners and the edges. Plus, there were so many tacks already in the chair, every third hammer tap, we'd find one and our perfectly placed tack would fly across the room!

The finished article!

YIPPEE! We made something that isn't a badly hemmed second-hand dress for once!