This is the chair we bought on Craig’s List a lot of years ago.
It was pretty ratty even then, so you can imagine what ten years of living has done to it. I won’t qualify that with ‘living with two boys’ because it’s just living that has worn it to a fray, not a particular gender’s style of living (though we will never forget the Sharpie Sleepover incident, which ruined a perfectly good Pottery Barn canvas duck slipcover that had at least another ten years in it, and possibly, (maybe?) was related to the sex of the sharpie owner?)
My mother would have made a muslin mock up, stitched the whole thing together, and then taken it apart to use as pattern pieces. But remember, I am committed to keeping this simple. No muslin patterns. No piping. No zippers. Here is the near-trapezoid that I pieced for the armchair’s cushion. It is laid on paper, which will be cut to use as a pattern to cut the fabric for the back of the cushion (which will not be pieced).
I pieced this section laying the fabric directly on the cushion, which made it very easy for my simple brain to see what kind of allowances I needed, and how the pieced sashing would line up with the top. Here is the sashing, pinned in place.
A small pleat is necessary, even at the curved corners.
The back to the cushion cover will be in two sections, so as to allow the insertion of the seat.
Here is a temporary chair back — a quilt-in-progress that was folded up nearby.
Although I am open to using pieced sections in ways other than originally intended, I think this one will still be finished as a wall quilt — another installment in the “Global Warming Series”. I want the back of the chair to use the same fabrics as the cushion. Given my lack of upholstery experience, these next areas will surely be jerry-rigged!
After snapping the Craig’s List chair picture, I walked into the other room, and saw a “Middle Passage” work-in-progress serving as a temporary chair back. Happens all the time, and we have all been stuck with pins more than once!
