I feel like a poor example of Green Living lately. Used to be that I could go almost a month between gas tank fill ups on the Volvo. But since opening the store I’ve logged almost 600 miles in six weeks! Some days it seems like I’m making two or three trips back and forth to town to go to the shop, pick up or drop off a child from school or make an emergency ginger ale run. (I forgot to mention last week the stomach flu hit our house! Thankfully I dodged that bullet.)

I also feel like I’ve been generating a disproportionate amount of garbage lately. Everyday I leave the shop with the back end of the station wagon loaded with garbage. Most of it is cardboard boxes from shipments and I do recycle so I’m not a total loser. But there is still a lot of plastic packaging in some of those shipments that isn’t recyclable.

In an effort to up my Green Points, tomorrow I plan to make a few Eco-Bags; fabric shopping bags to use instead of paper or plastic. I’ve looked at a few tutorials and patterns on the net but think I’ll just draft my own pattern. I also added two classes to the May class schedule so you can learn to make your own Earth Friendly Shopping Bags.

Having those bolts of beautiful new fabric staring me in the face all day was more than I could stand.

I had this chair hiding in the corner haphazardly covered with some leftover home dec. fabric from my kitchen windows. It was a freebie from a former neighbor and is a nice sturdy chair with unfortunate cosmetic problems.

You can’t see the grime and spots on the seat in the picture. But trust me, it’s there.

So I set to work.
I started taking pictures thinking that if all went well, I’d turn them into a Slipcover 101 tutorial. But suffice it to say, I’ll show you the in-process pictures but you probably would do better with a good book on how to make slipcovers properly. I know I have one somewhere in my personal library. But I didn’t have it here at the store yesterday so I just kind of “winged it.”

Speaking of wings, I would strongly suggest that the beginner slipcover maker avoid wing chairs. Those curvy little ears up on the corner are a pain in the butt to fit properly. Hence, mine are “close enough for rock & roll” but won’t be winning any blue ribbons at the Home Dec. Fair any time soon. (You’ll notice a lack of close-up shots of the finished wings!)

Another, do as I say and not as I do item would be to make a “pattern” with muslin or an old sheet first before cutting into your good (read: expensive) fabric. I have another chair in the store that I made the slipcover for year ago and that is how I did that one.

But like I said, this was an impulse project and I figured it wouldn’t get too much wear and tear or close inspection by the Slipcover Police. It did however reconfirm that I really don’t want to sew for others. If I were making this for a client, I’d have to be perfect and that just takes all the joy out of it!

But hey. I think it looks pretty darn cute. I have a few steps to finish it off. It needs ties to keep the sides closed where I had to leave slits so it could be pulled on and off and it needs hemmed or some other finishing on the bottom. I’m still deciding if I want to trim it out with some funky rick-rack or a ruffle.

By the way, that is the Chandelier Lace in Persimmon from FreeSpirit’s Tina Givens’ ZaZu line.

I finally had a chance to sit down with my boxes of floss and a needle and stitch up a sample from the Sublime Stitching iron ons. These are so cool! I had a hard time deciding which set to “sacrifice” but ultimately went with the “Craftopia” one seeing as it fit the theme pretty much perfectly!

I have a supply of almost the entire line of patterns, plus a few of her complete kits and Jenny’s fabulous book. The book is a great bargain because it has a huge section of iron-on patterns not available in her individual packets and complete instructions for beginning stitchers.

(FYI: I colored in the measuring tape with a fabric marker and then just outline stitched it with dark grey floss.)