a striped slipcovered chair!

Once again, Saipan is the impetus behind this project. After searching for months (really, since last summer!) for a chair that’d ship here, we found this one on sale at Anthro. Only problem? It’s crazy tie-dyed pattern = totally not my style (plus, it’s way brighter blue in real life than it is in their picture).

And so we’re adding “slipcovering furniture” to our repertoire of Saipan-neccisitated-skills. Honestly, I thought the black and white stripes were going to be a muslin for the slipcover (I had big plans to use this gorgeous gray linen that I bought at Dongdaemun). But since it turned out well, striped slipcover it is!

I followed these slipcover making instructions (with a few tweaks to account for chair differences), but thought I’d show you a few step by step process shots as well (forgive the awful lighting- our house here has the weirdest dull-yet-flourescent overhead lights!).

First, I pinned the fabric to the chair, following the contours. I tucked the fabric into the place where the back and the seat meet, traced around the entire thing, and cut out. Then I pinned a skirt into place and cut. Next I pinned the back into place and cut. Last, I laid flat fabric on the crescent moon shaped top portion, traced and cut. After I had my pieces, it was just a matter of pinning and sewing them together to match the shape of the chair (though, I made the sides wider in order that the cover would fit down over the top. After hemming the bottom I was done!

Guys, this took an afternoon and evening. Shocking. And lovely!

Sometime I am going to make a list of all of the skills I’ve acquired in Saipan (most of which are completely unnecessary anywhere but here). “Slipcovering ugly chairs” can top the list of actually-useful skills on that list- haha!