Fabric Collage Upholstery

January 23rd, 2012


PhotoImage: BokjaDesign.com

Fabric collage upholstery is popping up everywhere. The girls from Bokja Design, a Beirut interior design collaboration, have obviously mastered the art of combining colors, textures, pattern and shape to create their truly magnificent works of upholstered art. And more recently, Happy Chair has been all over Pinterest with its’ own brand of handmade upholstery fabric.


PhotoImage: shawnarobinson.com

Is it just me, or isn’t this reminiscent of the much coveted MacKenzie-Childs look in the 90’s, but with more carefree bohemian freedom? I used to think the M-C furniture was the epitome of perfectly restrained chaos, with the bold patterns coming together on the furniture to produce a visual orgasm of color, pattern and texture.


PhotoImage:HoustonLifestyles.com

It’s not as easy to execute as it seems. Believe me, I spent many hours trying to emulate their ottomans during my ‘ottoman phase’.


PhotoImage: CorneliaPark.com

Fast forward now to 2012. It’s the same thing as far as the mixed and haphazardly, yet very calculated use of fabric mixes, the tag line of ‘recycled’ and now a punch of bright, bold and ethnic patterns. What goes around comes around, right? In fact, Squint Limited, a UK design company even uses the same adjective, bespoke, that MacKenzie Childs touted. Check out their jazzy tufted headboard and footboard, a stitching and sewing feat, indeed.


PhotoImage: ApartmentTherapy.com

I admire those people who can take lots of busy design and put it together in a workable, appealing way. My big question is this, can you imagine how much time it takes to design and stitch the fabric pieces together and then combine that with the upholstering of the pieces? Labor Intense comes to mind. And then, how long would it take before you’d tire of the busy patterns? That just may be me, but I am thinking about doing a tamed down, modern version of this idea. You know I’ll let you see how that goes.

When I started my upholstery design business fifteen (or more) years ago, I used to call my pieces ‘upholstered art’. That’s how I feel about all upholstered furniture because I know what it takes to do a good job of reupholstering. Whether a chair is upholstered in a purple velvet with gray welt cord, or covered in modern patchwork, they are still works of art if you love the shape, size and style of the frame. And if they have those three things, you can reupholster them over and over again throughout the years. That’s practical and it’s GREEN!

If you’re pretty handy with the sewing machine, you could easily put some fabric remnants together to try this for yourself. Just for you.
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Fix Flattened DOWN Leather Sofa Cushions

January 10th, 2012

Flattened Down Sofa Cushions really means flattened DOWN sofa cushions. Literally, down feathers. This is the second time I’ve wrangled with my brother’s flattened down leather sofa cushions. On the first go round, I unzipped and removed the down filled cushions, which you probably know are boxed forms with stitched channels that are stuffed full of down, I opened them up, removed the filling, fluffed up the down and added more down to each channel and restitched the cushion forms. Which, by the way, was no east feat! This was one tedious job, one only a loving little sister would do for her big brother.

It wasn’t long before he called me, whining again. There is just no way around it, down filled cushions go flat, especially when the cushions get lots of wear and tear from big, tall men.
Here’s what happens. Down feathers, with their barbs, get tangled and twisted together, which eliminates the air or space between them. It’s that space that theoretically gives you the cush you need under your behind for a comfortable seat.

You can remove all the down, put it in a big trash bag and then get your hands in there and separate all the feathers to restore the fluffy volume. I tried that. Word to the wise: You can refluff till the cows come home, but unless you replace the feathers, all or part, this vicious cycle will never end. If you can’t possibly live without the look of down, there are ways to fake it. You can spend the big bucks and have down wrapped foam or spring cushion inserts custom made for your cushions.
We opted for a less expensive solution. Big Brother wanted to solve this down problem once and for all, so I ordered three pieces of 5″ firm foam, cut to size and then went to work. The reason I ordered the foam already cut to size was because the cushions on his leather sofa were wider than the standard 24″ width of foam slabs you get at Joann or even an upholstery supplier. We paid $107.00 for three custom cut 5″ thick pieces of foam. Not bad.

In addition to the foam, I used dacron batting, and spray adhesive. Of course you need scissors.

1. Determine the length and width of the foam you need by measuring welt cord to welt cord, both directions and adding 1″ to the length and width measurements.

2. Unzip and remove the old down inserts

3. Line up the new foam

4. Cut pieces of dacron to cover the top, front edge and partial bottom, or the full bottom of the foam inserts. Apply spray adhesive to the foam and dacron, let it get tacky and then press to secure the dacron in place.

5. Then get ready to ride the bronco and get those new inserts stuffed into your leather cushion covers.

Stuffing new inserts into cushion covers is not easy. You can try to fold them in two and work them into the cushion cover, or you can place them into a plastic bag and stick a vacuum hose up against the foam, holding the plastic around the hose, suck the air out of the foam, which will shrink the foam, to allow the foam to slide into the zipper opening very easily. If you do this, try to pull as much of the plastic bag out after the cushion is in place. Remember this, it’s perfectly fine to grab a handful of dacron pillow stuffing to fill in the corners. You want your cushions looking smooth and full.

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Pinterest Makes Me Do It

January 5th, 2012

Can you believe fast time flies when you’re mindlessly oggling images of dream rooms on Pinterest? Naively, I start to believe I can turn my house into one of those inspiration boards. The image above is one of those rooms I want to recreate in my house. (Honestly, who wouldn’t want their own little “morning room” where you can single handedly bring back letter writing?) This smart room above was featured in an Elle Decor article entitled A Chic Retreat in The Hamptons. Like most slideshows, I thought every room would be as appealing as this little gem, but happily, the the other rooms held no appeal for me. I say happily because I’m happy I didn’t have to be jealous of their entire Hamptons retreat, just this inviting office/letter writing/reading/morning room.

If you’ve read my blog in the past few months, you may know I’m in the process of a whole house makeover for my weekly newspaper column. When I saw this picture, I knew I could do this look in my own house, the side room off of our master bedroom, which you’ll read more about in a moment. When we first moved here, we halfheartedly turned it into Mr. Mod’s home office. Who knew he was such a slob? Keeping a tidy home office was never a dream of his. He brought home the biggest, clunkiest, darkest desk he could find. What’s more, he quickly tired of being isolated upstairs when all the action was going on downstairs. So, it has become an eyesore of a room complete with a gargantuan copier from, like, 1989 or something. However, the room does have a massive window facing south where I sometimes stand in my jammies with arms outstretched, replenishing my supply of Vitamin D. Can you see where I’m going with this? I could really appreciate this room, I could make it something wonderful.

Now, I’ll let you in on the horrible secret. This upstairs side room was weird, creepy and dreadful when we bought the house. I suspect there were some very strange “get togethers” that went on up there. I don’t even know where to begin, but here goes:

*Diagonally cut tongue in groove panelling on the walls
*Two walls with floor to ceiling smoked mirror panels attached to the paneling
*Brown, black and amber mottled ceramic tiles all over the floor
*A giant, freakin’ outdoor hot tub smack dab in the middle of the raised floor
*A 2′ x 2′ wooden storage cabinet in the corner that houses a garden hose and spigot. (?????)
Need I say more? Oh, I could say more, but I won’t, other than the house practically had to be exorcised before we could call it home.

Anyway, once the keys were in our hot little hands, hubby ran upstairs thinking he could take a dip in his very own in-house, sexy, flippin’ hot tub right there off the master bedroom. To say he was disappointed would be an understatement when he discovered water pouring through the ceiling into the dining room. He made a quick phone call, borrowed my brother’s Sawzall and the hot tub was quickly stacked in neat little piles out by the street for Tuesday morning trash pickup. Plywood was put down to cover the hole, carpet was laid, and the smoked mirrors are still up there. But not for long.
It’s just about time Mamma has her own sun drenched morning room.

Janet’s Mod Green Pod Ring Chair

November 30th, 2011

You’re probably tired of seeing the reupholstered high heels image, right? I’m headed out to teach class, but I thought I should explain why I’ve not been posting lately. My dear mom passed away at the end of October. We waited until Saturday to have a service for her. Relatives came from far, far away to honor my funny, creative and extremely loving mom. As I tend to do when faced with losses, I plunged into house projects since I was the one who was appointed to host the post memorial after party. Besides going very far inward to grieve the loss of my lifelong buddy and mother, I’ve felt at a loss to write about projects and makeovers.
Don’t worry, I’m coming out of it, and as always, things look different after a life changing experience.
I have many class projects and my own projects to share. The image above is the cutest little ring chair done by my good friend, Janet. The Mod Green Pod fabric is perfectly positioned on the chair she repaired and reupholstered for her friend’s birthday present.
I have lots more to come, but now I’m off to teach my Wednesday Lunch Bunch class.

So You Want to Learn Diamond Tufting?

November 7th, 2011

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I couldn’t stand it any longer. All the blog buzz about tufting is killing me. You just couldn’t be satisfied with upholstery, eh? You had to go and want to learn how to tuft. Well ok, as long as you’re willing to listen and learn.
As an owner of an upholstery business for fifteen years, and now teaching upholstery classes, tufting is one of those fine finish details that all want to know how to do, but very few have the patience to practice the skill.

You may be interested to know that real purpose of tufting was to hold padding in place. Padding of yesteryear was horsehair and cotton batting; tufting was one way to secure it. The beauty of tufting is just and added benefit to its function. Here you see again, FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.

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Skilled diamond tufting, done right, with its tight folds and puffy and uniform middles is not something that is altogether easy to do. There are formulas for laying out the diamonds on the foam and then the fabric. NOTE: It’s not the same layout on the foam as the fabric.
Obviously, you need larger diamonds on the fabric to compensate for the rolls and folds.


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Another spot where things get difficult is when you’re trying to get the fold to be crisp and tight when pulling on fabric on the bias. For those unfamiliar with fabric terms, the bias is the diagonal stretch of fabric. It can get stretched out and you may drive yourself crazy trying to get a fold to stay put. This may be where the upholsterer actually machine stitches the folds in place (tedious and time consuming).

West Elm has this little settee done up with horizontal diamond tufts. I love this. Anytime someone changes the expected, it grabs my attention.


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As with all upholstery projects, my recommendation is to let the fabric know you’re the boss! Most fabric will do what you tell it to, unless it’s just completely unruly. Here is a fairly good tutorial I did on diamond tufting for Apartment Therapy a while back.

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I’m gearing up to show you different forms of diamond tufting so you can decide where you want to start.
I have a few favorites. Just remember that it takes time for even the most skilled crafts person to learn upholstery techniques. You’re superhuman if you can master it on the first try.

I am drawn to understated look of this two row diamond tufting with the long vertical pleats. It’s simple, functional and is extremely pleasing to the eye. Did you know that one reason you often see tufting on inside backs of curved chairs and sofas is that it’s one way to pull the fabric tight up inside that curve? That curve has caused many upholsterer’s hair to turn gray.

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I have a load of good, old fashioned pamphlets on tufting. I’ll be choosing some standard patterns to show you. To me, tufting is a nice side trip off the main upholstering highway. It gives you a chance to ‘decorate’ your piece a bit, get all fancy with it.

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If you want to see a master in action, click here. This is Kim Buckminster, aka Buck, doing his thing at The Upholstery Fair in the summer of 2010. Note: We’re organizing another one for Summer 2012.

Make a Fancy Powder Room Ottoman

October 29th, 2011

It’s been on my mind for years. Why not create an entire line of ottomans for powder rooms, master bathrooms, spas, etc.? Everybody needs a place to put their purse, jacket, towels, or robe, right? Admittedly, this venture needs to be fleshed out a bit. But in the meantime, I’m going to keep making them.

In my ongoing house makeover series for my Indianapolis Star column, DIY Journal, I decided to do up one of my upholstered spool ottomans with dressmaker details. (OK, so I just tweaked the design I did for the Design Sponge ombre ottoman, but design is evolution, right?)

To see this entire tutorial with loads more pictures, click IndyStar.com.

The Reupholstery of Beth’s Antique Settee

October 28th, 2011

A few tears were shed as our beloved Beth loaded up her beautiful heirloom antique sofa last Friday and headed home to give it back to her two boys, and by boys I mean these two handsome weimaraners.

Beth graduates with High Honors from the ModHomeEc Upholstery Class. She is one cool, pixie haired chick who has become an expert on the DIY version of antique reupholstery. Let’s revisit the highlights of her long, winding, spring tying road.

Here’s the piece she brought in to my studio early in the Spring. Notice the saggy springs underneath, baggy, worn upholstery and tired out gimp trim. Beth took the sofa down to the bare bones and painstakingly built it back up to this gorgeous specimen of a fresh, modern antique.

We were tickled to find old Wayne Feed bags were used as the muslin covering over the horsehair stuffing.

Now, between tearing out the seat material and old webbing, and applying new webbing, Beth’s hubby rode his bike to my studio and performed joint surgery on her settee by drilling and inserting metal rods that were completely covered after upholstering.

On to the rebuild. She rewebbed, cleaned her old springs, brought them back to class and hand stitched them to her new, tightly woven webbing…

…and started the arduous process of spring tying.

Once her springs were in and tyed, (8 ways), she covered them up with a nice, tightly attached piece of jute burlap.

The old padding was just too dirty to reuse, so Beth made a pattern for her seat and cut out a piece of 3 inch foam for practical comfort.

Once the foam was securely glued to the burlap, she attached a piece of polyester dacron to the seat. That does two things: acts as a way to shape the foam, and adds a buffer layer between the foam and the fabric to cut down on the friction between the two.

I told Beth how you take old horsehair, put it in a pillowcase, run it through the washing machine and then lay it out to air dry. She wisely decided to keep the horsehair as the padding for the center back oval. Before putting it back in place, she “volumized” it with a regulator. You could use an ice pick or long needle.
Then, to hold the horsehair in place, she placed three rows of bridle stitches over the horsehair. She then attached a new piece of cotton muslin to hold the horsehair in place, added one more layer of dacron batting and now she was ready for her upholstery fabric.

Beth had finished the seat and attached her inside back fabric to the three sections. She made covered buttons to pull through the inside right and left sections.

At this point, we decided to tighten up those buttons a bit.
Once the buttons were tightened and securely anchored to the frame, she was ready to attach the dacron padding to the entire back of the settee.

And, finally, it’s time to put the three back sections on. Attaching the fabric panels was almost like icing on the cake.

The final step was to attach gimp all around the inside and outside of the settee to hide all the staples.

Yes, professional upholsterers use hot glue to attach trim.

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There you have it. This proves that a non professional upholsterer can really upholster an antique settee, and do a good enough job that it looks like a professional did it.

Danish Modern Chairs Get a Simple Makeover

October 14th, 2011

Out of the clear blue, while searching Mid Century Modern Chairs on Google, I came across this project I posted a while back over on Curbly a few years back. Usually, I’m very critical of the photos I take, but I particularly liked this one. I thought it deserved to be re-posted since everyone is mad about chair makeovers. I clearly remember the day I found these two chairs at Goodwill. If I hesitated one second before ripping off the bottom of those tags, I must have been insane. These proved to be a worthwhile makeover. I fixed them up, posted them on Etsy, sold them for a nice little profit to a lady in Washington, DC, and lugged them out there on a trip we had already planned. NO SHIPPING EXPENSE, YIPPEE!
Keep your eyes peeled this beautiful Fall weekend. Be sure you look for something unusual. You don’t want to spend the money and time making over an average chair. Anybody can do that.

Leah’s Reupholstered Sewing Chair

October 5th, 2011

A few things I love about this photo:
1.) Leah looks happy
2.) The nailheads are unbelievable
3.) The fabric is pulled and smoothed perfectly
4.) And it’s a sewing chair!!

Those components make this one of my favorite upholstery class photos. There are oodles of photos I need to post, but first I need to finalize and post my new upholstery classes and workshops.
I’m just tempting you with this picture of upholstery delight.
New schedule should be up no later than Thursday. I’ll be so happy once it’s all compiled. Some new workshops are being offered.

The Design*Sponge Book: How To Slipcover a .99 Goodwill Chair

September 7th, 2011

Even though I’ve had that little D*S sidebar widget announcing that my slipcover project made it into the Grace Bonney’s book, I’ve not seen the bound book yet. Yesterday, Grace announced that her book, Design Sponge at Home, is now officially available, and she’s preparing for her national book tour. Indianapolis is not one of her stops; however, Chicago is. She’ll be promoting the book in Chicago October 11th and 12th. I’m not sure I’ll make it to a Chicago event, but I have offered Grace this upholstered ottoman as a Giveaway prize for the Chicago event.

It only seems right to offer something to the book’s promotion, don’t you think? It’s the least I could do since my slipcovered Goodwill Outlet chair made it into the sacred pages of this Bloggy/Design-y/DIY bound encyclopedia of design goodness.

I remember the day Grace asked me if I could do a simple slipcover project. I was in D.C. After we got home, I rushed around looking for a good chair. My last hope was a Goodwill Outlet store. And there she was in all her grubby glory. I paid less than $1.00 for this Flexsteel Mid Century chair that had certainly seen better days. Since the photos were going to D*S, I had to make sure I had good lighting all day long. We moved the kitchen table into the dining room, and I made the slipcover right there in my kitchen.

You may see the book before I do, but I’m pretty sure this project is depicted in illustrated pictures rather than photos. Thus, here’s the ratty chair before it got all dressed up in a pretty light blue frock.

I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of the book and pour over the wide array of projects she lassoed into one book. Grace mentions how difficult a process it was to write this book. I know from my meager Curbly book contributions, she is absolutely right.

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