Roadside Rescue of a Cabinet--My Curby Find

I was just driving with my girls down the road

minding my own business, driving Miss S to her piano lesson,

when guess what I spied??

A treasure.

A find.

A Masterpiece.

A dirty, scroungy, moldy cabinet that, 

during the remodeling of a bathroom,

of a very old home, someone had put on the curb,

which I thought had some potential.

I slowed down and my girls groaned.

they know what this means.

This means 

I will embarrass them by getting out of the car to inspect someone else's trash.

If I want some one else's trash, 

this also means that

they will have to also get out of the car and help me put this trash in the car.

This also means 

that the back seats go down so that the find will be able come with us,

which usually has them both either squished together in the front seat,
or in the back holding onto this new treasure

so it doesn't fly out of the car.

This is exactly what happened this day.

We got the piece home and to the back deck because Beefcake 

wouldn't let me bring it in the house until it was sanitized.

It was gross and smelled funny.

But wouldn't you have brought it home, too?

I cleaned and sanitized her, 

gave her a fresh coat of paint and here she sits in the corner of the breakfast room.

She is quite useful.

Napkins and hand towels in $3.00 baskets from 

Old Time Pottery.

Dish towels and cookbooks.

One of our ways to be "green" is by using cloth napkins.

 I love turning ugly & abandoned things 

into beautiful & useful ones, 

for this is what Jesus' love has done for me!

I am linking up to these fun parties, 
and if you want some wonderful inspiration, you should come too:


Southern Hospitality Thrifty Treasures Monday
Making the World Cuter Monday
The Girl Creative Just Something I Whipped Up Monday
DIY Showoff: DIY Project Monday

Oh No She Diuhnt! And Oh No He Diuhnt!

We should prolly just keep our fat trap shut about this because it's barely about real estate but we can't help it...

Your Mama was perusing Curbed LA yesterday afternoon awaiting inspiration and lightening to strike when we read with a grisly combination of righteous indignation and breathless flabbergast their rehash of the utterly absurd US Magazine report about how Brad freaking Pitt–allegedly–has his panties in a twist about his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston's new found affection for all things architecture.

See puppies, architecture is kinda Brad's thing, you know? Apparently–and allegedly–back when the Pittster and Missy Hoo Hoo were still married and re-working Wallis Annengberg's big ol' house in Beverly Hills she would mock poor Brad for his thing, you know? So he's little sensitive and possessive about his thing, you know?

Then along comes the big, ugly dee-vorce–that was, mind y'all, finalized 5 damn years ago–and Mister Pitt's seemingly endless adoptions and breeding events with Angelina Jolie, all of which–according to previous tabloid reports–left ex-Missus Pitt bereft and tumbling into the arms of bad boys like Vince Vaughan and diarrhea mouthed musician Jon Mayer.

If Us Magazine's unidentified source is to be believed–and we paraphrase liberally here–when jealously didn't work it's bitter magic on the Pittster ex-Missus Pitt moved on to Plan B: She went and bought herself a humongous Hal Leavitt designed house in Beverly Hills and then proceeded to pay nice, gay decorator Stephen Shandley a pretty penny or three to do up the place in a kind of high style, an time consuming and exceedingly exercise that was all, according to Us Magazine's source, just a pathetic "ploy" to get the Pittster's attention.

Bitch, pleeze.

Are we, the tabloid reading public, really supposed to believe that ex-Missus Pitt is so wrecked and desperate to restart her long dead romance with the Pittster and that rat's nest on his chin that she would spend a staggering $13,500,000 to buy an architecturally significant home and god only knows how many millions more on a re-do just so that she could get her pretty house on the cover of Architectural damn Digest and thus, finally and at long last, snatch the Pittster's attentions away from his global do-gooding baby momma Angelina Jolie and their 87 children? Really?

Listen celery sticks, Your Mama his hardly Miz Aniston's biggest fan but even our cynical pea-sized brain does not and can not allow us to believe that Miz Aniston is that many kinds of berserk. Like that Bravo tee-vee executive and budding talk show queen Andy Cohen says, "Here's what:" All these gossip glossies have just got to drop their incessant and stoopid bizness about ex-Missus Aniston still spending her nights lonely and locked up in her Hal Leavitt designed and Stephen Shandley re-worked mansion pining away for the Pittster and his architectural thing. It's tie-urd. A been there and done that so many times times we got a bladder infection kind of tie-urd.

Okay? Enough.

Dining Chair Slipcover- Pictorial Tutorial

A pictorial tutorial is mostly all pictures, 

in order, 

showing how the project was done,

with minimal interruption

by words. 
I make no claim to be the bestest, baddest, 
or most blessed seamstress
on the planet.
I'm just showing you how I sewed some lovely covers in an afternoon,
and that it is not as hard as it seems to sew a cover,
and that if I can sew on my REALLY old machine
(it was passed down to me by my Gram),
and make something useful, so can you
(that is if you have a machine).

Well, let's go--
This is the finished product.
I sewed 2 of these covers for a friend,

who paid me with these chairs that live here:

(I love bartering-it's easy on the budget!)

Lay the chairs on their backs and trace around them,

leaving 3" for the hem.

Pin the cut out piece to the back of the chair, 

making sure you have enough fabric to attach to the piping,

about 1" is needed.

What's piping?

This is piping:

If this piece of fabric will work, use this piece as a pattern,

(you may have to tweak by trimming it)

(I have four, remember, since I am doing two chairs).

This is picture is fuzzy (duh), sorry.

Here we start the piping.

Piping is made with cording, which is the cotton/gauze stuff below.

I bought it at Wal-Mart.

Measure the area around the chair in which you want piping.

I just made piping for the sides/top of the chair cover.

Cut 2" wide strips, from the leftover part of your fabric, 

and sew the short ends of the strips of fabric, 

right sides together, 

until you have the total length that you need.

Fold the strips in half and put the cording/piping inside the fold.

Pin along the piping to hold it while you sew.

You may have to move your needle position all the way to the left, 

so one of the feet of the presser foot rests on top of the piping 

and the needle will sew directly next to the cording/piping.

Trim the excess fabric off the length of the piping.

1/2" from the stitching to the cut edge.

Put right sides of fabric together and pin in the piping between them,

lining up all the cut edges. 

Sew these three layers together in the same way you sewed the piping.

The right side should look like this.

Turn cover right side out.

I use a chop stick to push the corners out.

Pin the hem.

Fold under and stitch.

Cut excess fabric away from

around the inside of the cover to 1/2" 

from stitching to the outer cut edge.

Set machine on zigzag.

Stitch raw edges. 

I do this twice.

Turn cover inside out and zigzag raw edges, where cording was sewn.

I sewed a topstitch around the outside edge, 

inside the piping, to make it look more finished.

You don't have to do this.

The top is done!

Now for the chair seat cover:

Measure side to side and back to front.

leave enough fabric down the sides, plus 1 1/2" for a hem.

This seat was 31" (including extra for hem) square.

This is how I make a square 

(right or wrong- it's my method, and works for me).

Fold fabric to make triangle, 

each raw edge should measure, in this instance--31".

Using raw edge as a template, cut around the sides.

You should have your square.

Place fabric on seat.

Tuck and cut away fabric until it fits around the legs.

Do not cut away too much, or you will have no hem.

This is what my leg cut-out looked like, after hemming it.

This is how you hem the outside edges.

Fold over fabric towards the inside of the cover once.

And then in again, and stitch.

The finished seat cover.

The back flaps are just a floppin' here.

So, Velcro is the solution for this.

Fold over the floppy flaps and pin each end 

where the Velcro will be sewed.

TA DA!

If I have left some very important information for you out,

please ask.

I have been sewing for 30 years (learned when I was pre-teen), 

and I take shortcuts sometimes,

and this may not be the most professional tutorial.

The basic two things I am concerned with when sewing slipcovers are:

1) Are they washable?

2) Will they hold up in the washing machine?

So, make sure there are no raw edges.

Hope this has been helpful to you!