Bob just picked all the peaches off the tree. They’re closer to their natural size than last year’s miniatures but still a little on the small side (even for Saturns). Regardless, we’re happy to have them and will be celebrating the solstice with a nice juicy peach tart.
APRIL 2009
Let me say right off the bat that these pillows are not ours (nor is the rug, for that matter). They’re from the shoot here the other day. But the chairs will never look better than they did with these pillows, so that’s how I’m showing them to you!
So what did I do? I painted them black, I covered them in canvas with burlap piping, and I puzzled the hell out of my teacher at every turn. (He already loves to tell the story about the crazy lady who made piping out of burlap.) It was terrific fun. Yesterday was the last day of class, and I’m sorry not to be signed up for the next session; it really was a wonderful thing to do, and I’m proud of these chairs. It’s true what they say about haste making waste — I see every flaw when I look at them — but for my first real upholstery job, they’re really not bad. A detail shot follows, for anyone interested. And when I can, I’ll be putting together a post about Laura’s stool, which was quite an odyssey but turned out amazing. I learned a lot by osmosis.
I'm home early from upholstery school today; the absence of garden photos has not gone unremarked (nor has my leaving you hanging about the state of the chairs); and the rogue calla at the bottom of the deck stairs is cracking me up. So I'm killing two birds with one photo. Plus, look, the euphorbia's starting to bloom! Always a happy time. So that's the good news.
Why did I skip out of class? That's the bad news. For me, anyway. I hit a dead end with the chairs. You see, this fabric is really lovely — very soft, nice color, great texture. And also: it's crap. It was practically disintegrating on me as I was sewing, so easily does it unravel at the cut edges. (Although, as I was sewing it, I felt immensely proud of myself and just wished my mom could see what I'd sewn.) But then when it came time to make cuts at the corners so it would fit down over the foam, everyone told me I needed Mr. Teacher to cut it because if I screwed it up, I'd have to start all over. So he cut it, and I got the front and back stapled in place and went to work on the sides and, um, the cuts were made too close the edges. So this week I showed up with a bottle of fray check and a lot of optimism. I got the sides stapled, doing what I could with the fray check, and pulling the fabric, and stapling as strategically as possible. And then just as I was getting really worried about what was going to happen to those corners as people sat in the chairs, I noticed that the fabric was already beginning to shred around the week-old staples on the back side.
Given that I don't think this fabric, lovely though it is, is doing the chair any real favors, and not wanting to put more time and effort into trimming the raw edge of this one, sewing and attaching and trimming the next one, and then not loving them and never letting anyone sit in them, I've decided to cut my losses. The chair came home with me. By next week, I'll remove all the staples from the seat cover, find and cut new fabric, and next week I'll begin again.
And I need it to be something totally different. Peacock blue satin? Painter's canvas with red welt? What?
p.s. If anyone wants one of those pups the Agave mediopicta alba birthed over the winter, let me know. I'll be happy to send you one, wherever you are.
Last week was one of those weeks where there were way too many people in the studio, slowing each other down considerably. I got my fabric all cut (1/2" seam allowance around the pattern for the seat piece), sewed my welt (1-1/2" strip of fabric sewn around jute welt cord results in matching 1/2" seam allowance), and got most of the way sewing the welt onto the first seat piece. But the bobbin kept screwing up. So I'm worried.
I have this Wednesday — 3 hours — to finish these (sew welt to seat, sew box to welt, attach to chairs, finish with braid or whatever — times 2!) and get them home in time for a shoot on Thursday. This doesn't seem even remotely possible.
This is an extremely instructive activity, even if only for understanding what’s involved when hiring an upholsterer, knowing what to ask, and appreciating the various labor and material costs involved. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat, as they say, and Mr. Teacher has me doing the deluxe job on these chairs. You may recall that the breakdown of the previous upholsterer’s work netted (per chair) a piece of burlap, a rotten (clearly re-used) piece of 2-inch foam, a layer of cotton batting/half-inch foam (cotton on one chair, foam on the other) and the fabric. That’s burlap, foam, cotton, fabric. In my deluxe version, it is burlap, edge-roll, twine stitching, cocoa mat, 3-inch foam (Teacher agreed with me), polyester fiber, and next will come the fabric. Again, I'm breaking it down step by step for my own future reference, but anyone who’s interested in all the details is invited to keep reading:
This is reminding me of when the garden was in its sea-of-dirt phase, and I thought it was the most beautiful dirt I'd ever seen — and one of our proudest moments — and yet I couldn't believe I was posting pictures of dirt.
Anyway, the chairs are moving along just as quickly as I expected. On Weds, I got the second one stripped lickety-split, then both got new burlap, which was then stitched to the springs with flax twine and a curved needle (to keep everything in place). And Mr. Teacher had me add a bit of edge-roll to the fronts of them, to keep anyone sitting in them from ever encountering that hard edge of the frame. It's a 1/2" round of cotton tubing, basically. Sew a piece of burlap around it and staple it in place. I've got the fabric marked up and am ready to cut and sew this week! And it looks like we are going to be shooting a little bit in my living room for the Color book that Laura and I are currently working on (have I mentioned she's the stylist?), so I need to get these chairs finished and back home.
These chairs are so not us — they're like DG’s corner cabinet: how did they get here? But there’s something likable about them (beyond how cheaply we picked them up). So as noted, they’re next up for upholstery. I stripped one today and will do the other at the start of class Wednesday. Read on if you want to see the “before” and all the gory details.
The good news is: I did get it to the point yesterday where it was ready for fabric. (And you all offered excellent input; the general consensus that a little stool is a good opportunity for something fun is, I'm sure, absolutely right.) The bad news is: I couldn't get the "teacher" to talk to me (or, at least, not talk to me like I'm an idiot) about how to finish this off. As he noted, there are countless options. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about what they are, nevermind the pros and cons of each, to make an informed decision.
It's upholstery class day again and I have come to no conclusion with regard to fabric for the footstool. My problem in general is I always play it safe. Plus I'm not much of an upholstered-furniture type to start with. I get itchy if a room starts to look like it's been decorated, and, for me, fabrics are the quickest route to that destination. So I have a hang-up about fabrics and a propensity for neutrals, compounded by the fact that I don't want to have to redo this stool anytime soon. But on the other hand, I don't even particularly like this stool or have anywhere to put it! So why not put something bold and/or fun on, right? And I have bags of fabrics that fit that description. But somehow I can't bring myself to do it. There's a good chance I'll feel attached to this stool when all is said and done, simply because it's the first real upholstered piece I've ever done. So I feel like I want to like it, and I want to like it for the long haul, even though I know I'm likely to turn right around and put it on Craigslist. Is this pathetically conflicted of me or what? I'm not exactly known for my indecisiveness, but here I am.
So I'm taking a big bag of fabrics to class today and will see what happens. If it's at all like last week, we'll all by competing for Mr. Teacher's attention the whole time and I won't even have the opportunity to make this decision today. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
I'm leaning toward the solid blue-grey in the upper left of this photo, no welt anywhere, just a clean seam around the top edge and brass tacks around the bottom. Bob would prefer I use the two-tone green number at top right, but I can't do it (and don't think there's enough of it anyway). What would you do?
I think Laura's going with the yellow-and-white version of the geometric pattern seen here, which is in my box at school.
I was having a bit of a downer of a day yesterday until Bob walked in the back door with an armload of Mexican sage. We've been having a long run of 70-degree, bright blue, sunshiny days and he was out tending to the still-neglected front yard, plowing down the weeds and cutting the sages and assorted other things to the ground. It's been crazy having the windows open every afternoon — I imagine we're in for a rude awakening soon.
For our first projects, Laura and I showed up with what seemed, to us, like freakishly similar footstools. Similar in size, both with Queen Anne legs. Neither anything to write home about. Turns out they have almost nothing in common. Mr. Teacher pulled Laura's legs out by their dowels right off the bat, and pointed out that mine are integral to the frame. That was just the beginning ...
This is our teacher (in the tie) and his assistant (in the apron). They were very friendly and welcoming to Laura and me, the only two newcomers in the class. The rest of the students? Not so much. So it was just like I remember school! But it's ok, we'll win them over.
My friend Laura and I have signed up for an upholstery class, and I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. When we went to register, we were given a list of tools to bring, and I got a little giddy. My immediate thought was that it was like being in art school again. In truth, the buying of school supplies was always a big highlight for me — all those fresh notebooks, sharp pencils. The promise of so much learning before the disappointing reality of school. In art school, the supplies got much, much cooler (and much MUCH more expensive). But it’s been so many years since I had that experience. This time it’s made even better by the fact that the supply list merges shop tools and sewing supplies. Can you imagine?
Somehow all my tools became Bob’s over the years, so I went out and bought shiny new hammers and screwdrivers and so forth, and a badass black toolbox to put them in. And I informed Bob that he’s not allowed to touch any of them. I’ve also chosen my starter project: a ratty flea-market ottoman that’s been in the basement since we picked it up. Along with some fabric options. All lovingly organized.
It’s the day before kindergarten all over again.
The best part about the whole thing (apart from the learning how to upholster, obviously) is that it requires that I step away from my desk for a few hours, once a week — that I go do something with my hands, and speak (out loud) to other people. I’ll let you know how it goes.
OK, this is a better picture:
1. DECEMBER 2008, with Bob’s shutters
2. NOVEMBER 2006, with the sponge-painted wallpaper stripped
3. SPRING 2006, the seller's pic, from the real estate listing
Seriously cannot take a decent picture of our living room — too much white, it freaks the little camera out. So I'm sorry, but this is the best I can do for the time being.
I think we'll be doing some shooting in our living room for the Color book I'm working on, and if anyone can get a good shot, it's Michele. So perhaps I'll have something to share then. Meanwhile, look at what Bob made! (times three)
Within hours of taking possession of this house, I had taken the filthy curtains and sheers off of all the windows and let the sunshine in. A week later, we were living here, and the bare windows were sort of a problem. But you know how it is with window coverings: they're either cheap and awful or they cost a fortune. Especially if you have an old house where the windows are not only very tall, but every single one is a different (odd) size. We've worked out various compromise solutions in various rooms along the way, but it's the been the biggest problem in the living room, with the bay windows, and in the dining room. We can't afford custom blinds, and what we have wanted from the very start are old-fashioned white shutters — the skinny, hinged kind; not the big plantation shutters. Can't afford them.
We also wanted to preserve as much of the beautiful light as possible, so we decided long ago that homemade cafe curtains were probably our best option. Within a couple of weeks, I had made prototypes out of burlap — in various shades and with differing hems — in an effort to work out the right proportions and all before picking real fabric. Guess what? Those are still hanging there, two and half years later.
Last year sometime, I saw the house above on the right, with the two-tone shutters. They're just simple frame-and-panel construction, and I find them charming. But I've worried about how much light the solid panels might shut out. Then a few weeks ago I was gazing at the other room up there, the one on the left, and noticed those too are solid frame-and-panel. I showed both to Bob, and we sketched out lots of other ideas — mostly variations on those lovely Moroccan window panels — but we kept coming back to these two photos. So for the past few weekends, Bob's been working on building our very own. I think he's probably putting the final coat of paint on them today, and then we have to resolve the tricky question of hinges. For various reasons, we'll need to use some sort of strap hinge, which means they'll be visible (8 of them, total) and so need to be funky or beautiful in some way. Once we find the perfect hinges, we'll see if this whole idea works. Stay tuned.
It's fall in our garden; here's how you can tell. Only four of our many trees are deciduous -- the elm, plum, peach and persimmon -- but the persimmon is the only one that puts on a show. The peach's leaves turn yellow and drop slowly but it's not much to look at. (Spring is a different story.) The plum, you look out one day and it's leafless. The elm turns late, light brown, and dumps all its leaves at once, around New Year's. (It's still entirely green at the moment.) But the beloved persimmon puts on a beautiful display, its huge leathery leaves turning, well, persimmon. At the same time, the fruit ripens, and it hangs on long after the leaves have dropped, so in winter you get the sight of a bare tree hung with bright orange orbs. At least, that's how it works in other people's gardens.
In our garden, it's very windy at the time when the tiny fruit are first trying to set. Most of the blossoms are blown off the tree before they ever even get that far. So we have very little fruit to begin with. And then there are the squirrels, who knock loose what's left. And they and the birds seem to take turns picking at it once it's on the ground. Today the leaves are nearly all dropped and rather than a fruit-laden tree, we have exactly ONE persimmon! Oh well.
It's been crazy at our house the past week or two. It's our year to host Thanksgiving, Bob had knee surgery on Monday (he's fine, thanks, but mostly useless) and our oven hasn't worked since sometime last spring. So we've been focused on sprucing up the house, and I think maybe it finally looks like we live here. If Santa brings me a new camera, maybe I'll be able to take a decent indoor shot. Until then —
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.