Despite all those half finished quilts waiting to be quilted onto wadding or for their appliques, or cut out and waiting in boxes as piles of pieces, I took on a commission I can sew with the leather machine.
It will soon be 3 weeks since I took my sewing machine to the doctor. It simply went dead. At first I thought the cable was broken and bought a new cable. That was no help at all, and the next day I hauled my little friend off to the doctor. That was before the Easter holidays. Today half of April is gone and there is no sign of my little friend. Supposedly a brain operation has been done and there is some fault there and it (the motherboard) has been sent to Holland, to the manufacturer, to be checked.
At first I waited patiently, but bit by bit impatience has turned into serious indignation. If a car goes in for repair even for two days, a replacement car is offered. My little friend, though, has been taken apart, sent away and is probably lying in some electronics technician's enormous desk drawer waiting its turn.
And I regularly send clients apologetic letters... Deadlines blown and total uncertainty... So embarrassing.
The local healthy lifestyle centre and cafe ordered new covers for their chairs, which would be of strong material and washable. I decided to use upholstery fabric production offcuts.
I made it and I will praise it myself:
* reuse of upholstery fabric: as a matter of principle I do not buy new but give offcuts a new life;
* strong material, yet washable and steam ironable;
* a hem with elastic that tucks under the chair keeps the cover nicely in place. Chairs with no lip at the front get ties at every corner.
* the covers are reversible: lighter fabric on one side, darker on the other. The elasticated edge can be turned round and the cover put on the chair the other way up. That way you can change the colour mood of the whole room according to your own mood 🙂 Or simply hide an ugly stain.
The first ten or so covers are almost finished. The sample cover in the picture I quilted with the leather machine. The others should be quilted through as well, so that the wadding stays properly in place even after plenty of sitting and washing. I hope to get my other little friend back after all and to finish this work with its help. Quilting with the leather machine is fairly clumsy and time consuming.
There will be covers to three more different patterns: some with notches on the backrest side, others with a wider seat, and a third kind for chairs with quite a round seat.
