The Creative Grapevine: October 2011

The King and Queen are Reunited

A while ago I posted a photo of a Bergere chair I had reupholstered for my livingroom. I knew I wanted another but could not find one anywhere. After giving up hope, I was looking around Craigslist and found an ad for two chairs. One of them is a Bergere style but smaller than the one I had. I sent an email to the listing sellar and picked it up the next morning. In the picture below the one of the left is the one I really wanted but got both chairs for $40.00. Both are in great shape.

The chair project got put on hold due to the fact it was summer and awfully hot in the garage. Then my husband and I repainted the livingroom. Once the livingroom was repainted I knew it was time to get working on the chair. I can honestly say I do not like caning on a chair or at all. I spent many many hours ripping out the caning on the backrest. When the spackle to fill in where the caning was, I worked on stripping/sanding and repainting the chair. I am so glad I over ordered the fabric since I had to rip the seat cover off twice. Do you know how hard it is to remove upholstery staples??? When I got the seat cover under control I stapled all of the double welt on the chair. Now it was off to the sewing machine. I had ripped apart the original seat cushion to use as my pattern. I have found every sewing project I do I always end up ripping it apart. I realized when I was half way done with makine the slipcover for the down cushion, I sewed the zipper on the front side not the backside. Let's just say me and my seam ripper were good friends. lol

Well enough of my ramblings, here is the find chair with the king sized match.

My husband thinks the cushion on the "queen" looks funny but I keep telling him it is because of the feathers in the cushion. I also make a back cushion for the "king, which you can not tell by the photo. The red throw pillow were store bought.

Off to the next reupholstery project (the pinkish chair in the first photo).

Quilted Baskets

We recently went to some friends house for their annual Apple Cider Pressing event. I knew what I was going to make the week before but I thought I didn't have "anything" to carry the treats in. So naturally I had to make something.

My friend Melissa had sent me a link to some cute fabric bins by Cutting Corners. How cute are these. I wanted my baskets longer lengthwise and shorter heightwise. So I sat down on my floor and started to cut out my own pattern. My measurements were 11.5 x 9.5 x 5.5 (including 1/4 seams).

P.S. I did not take the apples and squash as they are shown. I made some apple oatmeal cookies, pumpkin muffins and curried squash soup.

Frankie Test Tube treat

I am always looking for new things to make for the holidays. I find looking around SplitcoastStampers.com is a great resourse ideas.

One weekend I was getting together with my sister-in-law to make holiday cards/creations. I ran out to the Dollar store for some odds and ends. While waiting on the checkout line I noticed these test tubes with a cheapy digital watch in it. I knew exactly was we were going to make with these babies.

Once home I jumped onto the internet to find some directions for a test tube holder. I found this one by Lisa Somerville. It looked simple and easy to make. Here is my Frankie Test Tube treat holder.

Isn't he the cutest Frankenstein you have ever seen??? lol. Have a great day!

Randy's Quilt

I have a nephew named Randy who loves the Disney movie Cars. I was in Walmart months ago and found a prepackaged Disney Cars fabric, which I bought. (the best part it was on clearance). I thought of Randy right away. For a while I kept thinking what could I make out of the fabric. I was totally clueless. I had asked my sister if he would like a small quilt for the bottom of his bed. She said, "yes, since he is always chilly." (how can someone who lives in FL be cold). Later, I found out Randy was going to have surgery on Sept. 26. So I knew I needed to get moving on whatever it was I needed to make.

A couple weeks before his surgery I was in Walmart looking at the books and magazines. I came across McCall's Quick Quilts (October/November 2011) and knew this was the one I wanted to make.

I did not make the quilt as large as in the magazine but it came out alot bigger than I had in mind. When I finished it I packaged it up and mailed it out to Randy. He received it two days before his surgery (it was on a Monday). My sister said the look on his face was priceless. He loved it and had it for when he woke up in recovery.

What a precious face.

Ipad Cover

This year my husband bought me an Ipad for my birthday. It came with a nice leather cover, but the girlie girl in me wanted something pretty. At this time I was following the Travel Handmade challenges and saw one of their challenges was for an Electronics/Laptop bag. Since I already made my black/yellow/grey tote bag, I decided to make a matching Ipad cover.