Bring on the browns!

When I dyed the sofa covers I had one wash that wasn't as full as the rest and because I wanted to make sure the covers were about the same colour I added a large piece of muslin to the wash to fill it to the same amount. I was planning on using that to make the backing of a quilt but when I looked at the dining room chairs I got another idea for the fabric: re-cover the chairs. I've never upholstered anything before but didn't think that it would be too hard so I took the first seat off the chair and had a look at how they had done it. It was just fabric stretched over the seat and staple gunned down and since I have one I decided it would be easy enough.

After ironing the fabric to make it nice and flat I cut a rough square from the fabric that was large enough to wrap around and a bit more so I could fold over the edges and tuck the raw edges in. I then put a staple in the middle of each edge to stop the fabric being pulled off in the wrong direction and then worked my way from the middle to the corners, doing first the sides, then the front and last of all the back.

The corners were of course the most fiddly but I think I didn't do a too bad a job of it for a first effort. In the image you can see one of the other dining room chairs that is in about the same shape as the newly re-upholstered chair was before I did it, so you an see that they really did need a bit of TLC.