French Style Chair Makeover | Part four – Applying the fabric

 

Lucky for me, my Mother-in-Law dropped by before I got to the point of cutting out the fabric. She just happens to be an excellent seamstress and explained to me the importance of lining up the pattern before cutting. If it hadn’t been for her I probably would have just gone ahead with the cutting without a thought for the pattern and it’s anyone’s guess as to how that would have turned out. At worst I would have wasted a whole load of fabric, which would have been a shame since my lovely Mother-in-law later used that same fabric to whip up a couple of throw cushion covers for our sofa!

 

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Applying the fabric –  Using the templates

So, once I figured out how I wanted the pattern to look, I used the old templates again to cut out the new fabric. I found this lovely fabric on Etsy and you can find something similar here:

Linen fabric

Linen fabric plain

Linen upholstery fabric

The old seat cover which I had kept as a template had lots of surplus fabric. This is because it’s not possible to staple the areas where the chair arms meet the seat. The extra fabric is just pushed tightly down in between. I followed the template exactly when cutting out even though it seemed to me there was far too much extra fabric.

 

 

Applying the fabric to the seat

I used the same technique when applying the fabric to the seat as I did when I applied the back cushion in French Style Chair Part Three – Upholstering. Pulling the fabric taught, I stapled it to the chair frame. Because I followed the template from the old fabric there was an excess of about two inches all the way around. I just folded this under as I stapled so that the edge was neat and to stop the fabric fraying.

 

The excess fabric around where the arms met the seat was pushed down tightly into the gap, to avoid it coming loose.

All that was left now was to apply the silver studs.

 

 

French Style Chair Part One – Removing the fabric
French Style Chair Part Two – Painting & waxing the frame
French Style Chair Part Three – Upholstering

French Style Chair Part Five – Appying the nailhead tacks

 

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