Funky Fish Fabric!

I've been watching the Great British Sewing Bee and it has inspired me to do a bit of sewing again! 

Look at this great fabric I bought:

It's really a quilting fabric, but I'm going to use it to make a dress to wear for school visits. I've got a few fishy dresses that I wear, but this material is the best I've found. There are lots of funny faces, but I think this little orange guy is my favorite!

I'm not sure on the style yet, but maybe something a bit vintage-y would look nice. It's just a shame I won't be able to make it in time for World Book Day on Thursday, but it will be a fun project for next week.

I finished my chair!

I just finished my little project, re-upholstering the knackered office chair I got a couple of weeks ago. I had planned to cover it in stripey fabric, but in the end I decided on plain after I realised I wouldn't be able to match up the stripes on the front and back of the backrest because of the curve.

The material is a heavy duty wool upholstery fabric that I found on ebay. The colour is called 'pumpkin', and I was hoping it would be a slightly brighter orange, but now it's covered I think it looks quite 1970's and kind of suits the chair.

More importantly, it's really comfortable to sit on, and doesn't lower itself down with a jolt at the worst possible moment like my crappy old Ikea chair did.

Here's a 'before' picture:

You can probably see that the arms are a bit wonky, this was just down to the way it was bolted together, one of the bolts was in the wrong place, and needed an extra washer. So I took it all apart, replaced the foam, then covered it in new fabric.

I took lots of photos of the process, let me know in the comments if you would like to see how I did it step-by-step!

A New (very old) Chair...

Well here she is, poor old thing! It may not look like much of a good buy, but I reckon with a lot of tlc it will look as good as new, or perhaps better. I think it was an absolute bargain! It is signed "Labofa", which is a Danish company. According to their website they started producing office chairs in 1955, and still do to this day. I'm not sure how old this one is, but at a guess I'd say 60s or 70s. The upholstery's pretty knackered, but everything else is in good working order. I love the wheely bits, they remind me of little feet!

Today I bought some new foam for the seat and back, and dug through my extensive fabric stash looking for suitable upholstery fabrics. And according to everyone I have asked, (admittedly only my immediate family) the fabric I have chosen is completely unsuitable. Not in weight, durability, or texture, but because it has stripes.

Still what do they know? It's my chair, and I'll cover it in whatever I like.

Now where's that socket set....

My New Studio...

We're currently doing a whole lot of work on our house, and out of the dust and piles of tools and bits of wood things are finally beginning to take shape! This room was our old Family Room, and is now going to be my new art studio. I've spent far too much time poring over the Houzz website, if I'd spent as much time actually working on the house as I have spent on that flipping website it would have been done long ago.

The guys came to lay the new flooring this morning, it's quite a discreet coloured (i.e boring) vinyl, but I wanted something neutral so it fits in with any colour. It looks a bit like concrete which I like. It needs to have the skirting board put back in place, which will help it look more finished. In the photos the room looks dark, but it's actually a pretty light room, I need to sort out the electric lighting though because it hasn't got any at all at the moment.

My old study is very dark, with wood panelling and dark grey walls, and also it's full of clutter, so it will be great to start afresh and have a good clear out. I also bought a new (old) office chair which I am planning to restore. I'll blog about re-covering the chair too when I get a chance. I bought a plain white blind that I'm going to put up, I think I might stencil it so it looks something like this:

It is going to make a big difference to me to be working in such a light room, I can't wait!