wienerdog tricks.

I Think I Collect Ottomans.

This happened to me when I wasn't looking.

I have been known to collect t-shirts, chickens (non-live: go here for a live-chicken collector), bottles, lint. Now apparently I collect ottomans (not the empires, the foot stools).

I can't stop buying them. And I think it's because they CALL to me from thrift stores and estate sales everywhere, "Helloooooo! I am uuugggllyy. Coooommmmeeee bbbuuuuyyyyy mmmeeeeeeee!!"

I only buy ugly ones. Maybe because there are only ugly ones for sale. But there is no such thing as a truly unattractive ottoman: just an ottoman that hasn't yet been made beautiful.

Here is my latest Ottoman Transformation Activity:  

And you'll never believe it, but I got it for about 4 bucks and it looked like this:

I totally dig the way that I accidentally didn't make it long enough so the brown wood legs show and high five with the brown and white polka dot strip of vintage polyester on the bottom.

[To be clear: this is now officially my Second Favorite Ottoman. My first is here.]

I encourage this particular sort of collecting behavior. It is terribly fulfilling. And if you can sew a straight line, you can cover an ottoman.  I have mentioned this to you before.

And yes, later, I promise to show you how. 

And yes, later, that might even happen on video since it was so much fun to make that last one.

P.S. Thanks for the sweet cheering-on from you all. Your acceptance of my weird hobbies makes the world seem more full of butterflies. Do let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like for me to explain via video piece. I'm beginning to scheme for more of these and am Taking Requests.

Ottoman Bliss

A Craft Debt '11 Update

I made the Ottoman Cover of My Dreams.

And I don't want to brag, [Oh no: I just lied. I do want to brag, but it's for something very specific], but two very smart things happened in this project:

1) I DIDN'T make the ottoman cover I had planned to. It was cut and sitting there and staring at me and perfectly ready to sew, but I just couldn't get myself to do it and [here's the part to high five myself in the air about] I NOTICED that I was feeling that way, and so thought, "Hmm. Why am I not sewing that?" and then I said to myself, "Oh. It's because It's Not Right." And as soon as it came to me, I threw the cut pieces into a pile on the floor, spied the black and white houndstooth folded in a bin right behind the waiting (now naked again) ottoman and started wildly cutting the one that I knew would be Right.

2) The OTHER seriously smart thing I did was USE DINGLEBERRIES. You know: those fuzzy balls that are already to be sewn in a string. And I just think that those little guys make everything happier looking. I'm sure you agree.

So Item #4 is El Finito [that's spanish for sewn and no longer staring at me]. Tackling the big bedroom pillows next (maybe with Vicki K's Genius Creative Conquistador Idea of using two smaller zippers to cover the distance or maybe with Michelle's sweet offer of Canadian Kindness to swap zippers from our respective stashae [that's latin for stash]).  [Yeesh, you guys are Smart AND Nice.]

And my feet have a zippy place to rest. So that's positive.

Craft Debt '11 No. 1: The Big Ol' Linen Headboard

This is a Craft Debt 2011 Update.

It's completed: the Linen Whale has gone on home. For better or worse, I delivered my pal's fabric-covered headboard today with a lot of "just sort of scrinch it over here and you won't be able to see that one part if the sun's out. . ." She is terribly gracious and was very thankful and happy. Mostly: we're both just glad to have the thing finished and in place.

It really is, actually, pretty cute. 

The Pumpkinhead "helped" as you can imagine.

This project was a re-do of a store-bought, fabric-covered headboard that my pal bought with the big hopes of a nifty, high-end upgrade. We headed out to a terrific remnant shop and she bought heavy weighted linen to give the headboard a cuter, more substantial, less fake-micro-suede look and feel. And then I took the original cover and seam-ripped the behookus out of it and used it as a pattern to make another, more attractive version of it from the gorgeous coupla yards of linen.

I love a project that involves me saying things like, "Sure! I can probably figure that out . . ." This one was only tricky because 1) We added piping. Piping we made. Piping that felt like being squiggly when we wanted it to be all calm and straight and 2) I went at it like I always do: fast and furious and (therefore) full of mistakes I woud later need to fix. I'd like to introduce: Me. Hi. Have we met? I seem to have one creative process only, regardless of the particularities of what I'm taking on. In this case, it worked perfectly (since I don't otherwise have the First Clue about how to Make a Fabric Headboard Cover). So I just dove in and tweaked as I went. Um, for a year.

Anyways, thar she blows. All delivered and in place and pretty much just the amount of wonky that makes it all made-by-a-friend but not the level of wonky that makes it on-the-way-to-the-Goodwill-once-the-friend-drives-away.

First Ever Vintage Polyester Couch Cover

Here it is, Folks--the World's First Ever Polyester Couch Cover. 

 

(Our staff is verifying that claim, but for now, let's just go with it.)

I've been staring at my wonderful flowery brown couch that my buddy Bon gave me and that holds down the tv room faithfully, trying to figure out how to put some more spring into its, um, couch step. And it came to me in a rush: this couch is begging for a cover, and I can swing it. 

Plus, I have THIS in my stash (a GIFT from a super nice Blogger Friend who understands my love and reverence for the medium of polyester), and it's begging to live in my tv room where we do all our real hanging out and living and jumping and cuddling and watching and everything.

Plus, I happen to have a fat bunch of shockingly-coordinating red and white flower polyester that looks like its Polyester Sister. So there's that.

Plus--AS I continue to say to anyone in the world who will hear me: Old polyester is easy to sew! It's unbelievably forgiving! It's stretchy! And it comes in wonderfully weird colors and patterns! A shoe-in for the what-to-cover-the-couch-with variety of fabrics.

Action Shot of Newly Covered Couch:

 

I have to say that I was most surprised by how pretty straightforward it was to sew a couch covers--this was my first. Really--it was like making closes for Rosie--I sort of just draped the fabric and built the thing one panel at a time.  . . which made me think about making clothes (which I've been thinking about, as you know), and how all you really need to do is make a couch cover. For yourself. We are all just couches waiting to be covered. Which was why this was like sewing for Rosie, the Jetson's Robot Maid, and all I need to do is to figure out how to cover curved robot parts, and I'm home free as a seamstress. (Loved this post, which got me to thinking in this direction, btw). More on all that later (when I unveil the MATCHING POLYESTER SKIRT that coordinates perfectly with my couch cover. I know: amazing.)

In the meantime, consider all getting together to buy the URL www.oldpolyester.com for my next year's birthday, because I feel like I'm destined to own it.

 

Dear Tara (About Your Ottoman Questions),

Tara the Faithful Reader asked a good question about my last post:

 

Do you have a pattern you went off of ? . . . I have an ottoman DESPERATELY crying for a face lift (or should I say a cover-up)!

Here are my quick thoughts about making straight-line projects like ottoman covers.

I think the trick for these kinds of projects is to try to think of them like they'd be if they were flat--not 3D anymore, but 2D. Or this: I try to think about how a thing would look if it were filleted, like a fish. If I see it flat, then I can think about how to put it back together. 

 (This lovely image from www.sandysteelheaders.org)

The ottoman is really just two long strips sewn together (one's the bottom gathery one; one's the long flat one) that are then attached to a square (the top of the ottoman). I literally threw fabric over my ottoman and cut the piece out just a little bigger.

1. One big square: check. 
2. One long flat one for the sides--then cut into 4 that match the widths of each side and sewn back together so it makes the corners nicely.
3. One (even longer) flat one that you then pleat for that looks. (I just fold it under as I go on the machine.)
4. Attach the to long ones together.
5. Then sew those two joined strips to the square--which is really just four straight lines with some turns in the middle.

No pictures for this, but maybe that helps. Sew on, Friends! And remember: everything can be filleted and then re-constructed. Hazzah!