Things Might Get Ugly: Making Felted Slippers

I like to have a little project to work on in the evening while I sit watching TV. We are currently watching ‘Damages’ with Glenn Close on Netflix. While it is a compelling drama, I need something more to keep me from falling asleep. So while rummaging around, I found this hand spun wool that I have had in my closet for the past 20 years or so. I decided to make a pair of felted wool slippers. Since I want to keep track of the complex story line of the show, I did not want a complicated pattern. In fact, the pattern that I chose is so simple that I first learned to knit these slippers when I was 8 years old. I used size US #13 needles and a double strand of yarn. These are so easy that all you need to know is how to knit and how to purl. If you can cast on and cast off too, you can make a slipper in an hour or so.

Yes, the slippers went fast. I was able to pay more attention to the show than to what I was making. I made the Men’s size L so that I could shrink them and make them felted. They were pretty ugly but I soldiered on thinking that once they were fulled, they would magically become charming and beautiful. Next day, I dumped them in with the wash and put them in the dryer with some towels. They shrank but I had to wash them 2 more times to get them to fit. They looked a little better but not much…

Ugly or not, I rarely give up on a project. I am stubborn that way. The slippers were very thick and warm but also very slippery. I now needed to figure out a way to make them less dangerous. I decided to put a leather sole on their bottoms. I had some deer skin and spent the next 2 evenings sewing the leather by hand onto each slipper. They were becoming uglier by the day. I snaked a lace around their tops to make them stay on my feet. I thought about making some felted flowers or something to try to cute them up but well, I think I’m  better off  letting well enough alone. They are warm and they are comfortable but not much else. Sometimes, things can get ugly. Happy knitting! – Peg

Just About Home’s Hot Projects of 2011

Wow, we wrote about some really cool and creative projects here on Just About Home over the last year! I managed to convince my mom to write about some of the transformative things she’s been doing to her home of 25 years, and I’ve written about a few things that I’ve been learning how to do in my first home.

To recap the year, here were our top 10 projects of 2011 by pageviews!

10. Zinc Succulent Planters

I got these awesome planters from my husband for my birthday this year and fixed them up, Sunset magazine style, to welcome guests into the front door of my house. They are pretty sweet, and were simple to do with a quick trip to the local garden center! I’ll tell you again that I <3 succulents, and love living in a part of the country where they thrive.

9. Laundry Lines

My mom’s laundry posts got quite the traffic on the blog, too. How could they not, with this awesome pull out laundry line system in her laundry room? She dries most of her laundry right here, even in the freezing cold Minnesota winters. This pic got a bit of action on Pinterest too! Plus, laundry is more fun when you have pretty clothes pins.

8. Guest Room Makeover

Oh this was a fun and longstanding project this year. It was great to tackle a fully thought out design scheme on a tight $200 budget, but I did it! I just kept imagining I was on HGTV, and it was mostly smooth sailing. I think this was my favorite project of the year! It also was fun to make the few accessories for this room– the pelmet, the paint chip art, the bench, the mirror border…

7. Reupholstering a Mid-Century Modern Club Chair

This project finally brought the two Just About Home bloggers together in the same place for an epic project not often tackled by your every day blogger! YES! This was extreme reupholstery!

In November my parents came to visit, and in addition to a fantastic trip to wine country, my mom taught me how to do my first real upholstery job. I am so satisfied and proud of this chair. It’s the first thing you see when you come in my front door.

6. Korin’s Modern Geometric Living Room Design

I helped out my pal, Korin, to decorate her new condo, and this was the inspiration for her main living area. She ended up going in a slightly different direction (I think it’s more my taste than hers!), but it was fun to put my thoughts together to collaborate with her.

I gotta do more mood boards in 2012. They are fun.

5. Pink Christmas!

You must remember this one, right? It was just last week!  Pink Christmas was popular here, with my family and friends, and popular on the blogosphere. I don’t think many other bloggers had a pink Christmas, did they?

Pink Christmas was mostly celebrated by my pink tree, and my pink accented table decor.

4. Garden Curb Appeal

I had to remind myself what this project was…

Tackled early in the year, Brentan and I did some landscaping in the front of the house. This project was hard, manual labor. We dug up old stumps, re-set the brick border, and planted some fun plants (yay billy buttons and kangaroo paw!).

I wish I could say it still looks like this, but it needs a little TLC to not look so overgrown. The good thing is though, you can’t see those ugly sprinkler pipes any longer!

3. Yellow Lattice Pillow

This may have been the easiest project all year. Fabric scraps+ugly ikea pillow+ one hour= PRETTY!

I think I put a little too much algebra in this post (but math is important!). It turned out ok though, since it is number 3 on the list.

2. Faux Bois Floor

My mom showed off some of her updates to her cabin in northern Minnesota. It is button cute, and tiny. Sometimes it seems like you can do more with small spaces. Like you couldn’t make a faux bois floor in your 6,000 sf mini mansion. But a 200 sf cabin seems doable!

1. Painted Floor Cloth

And the number one most popular project in 2011 was the PAINTED FLOOR CLOTH! The combination an anthropologie inspired pattern, DIY spirit and good timing made this a star on our blog, and on Pinterest. So thanks for all the links here.

Thanks everyone for reading in 2011, and I hope you’ll be back in 2012 for even more epic projects, how-tos, DIYs, and fun times!

-Liz

Christmas Bokeh

Bokeh photos have been all over the place this season, and I’ve been obsessed since my mom taught me how to take one of my tree over the phone last week.

My first attempt at bokeh went well, and it’s actually quite easy to do:

I like the ones with small objects in the foreground, like the one above, or the elf in the post below. Set your f-stop to a low number, 2-4 works well, and focus on the tinsel or elf, or whatever. The small lights from a christmas tree in the background get all blurry and produce the desired effect.

If you want only blurry pretty lights, set the focus to manual, keep the same low f-stop, and focus on the space in front of the tree.

Some of my favorite bloggers have tried it out!

Decor and the Dog

Peas and Crayons

Centsational Girl has a great tutorial on taking great holiday photos, including BOKEH!

Centsational Girl

And last year, we even featured a happy bokeh santa on Just About Home!

Happy bokeh-ing!

-Liz

How to Make a Vintage Bed Linen Table Runner

One of the first things I did when I was home for Thanksgiving last week (after sleeping off the jet lag from a red eye flight) was help my mom make a table runner out of these vintage Swedish bed linens. She’s had this piece of fabric for a while, after picking it up at an estate sale (where else?) for $5.

For that price, despite the beautiful craftmanship and fabric, it was worth it to reinvent its purpose rather than let it sit in the closet and never use it on a bed.

First, I cut the fabric to the right size.

Then my mom folded the edges over twice and ironed the seams.

Finally, I sewed along the edges to finish the seams.

It was easy and quick.

Isn’t this vintage fabric fabulous!?

I love how it turned out on the Thanksgiving table. And it can be used again and again. See?

-Liz

Somewhat Crafty Weekend

Ever have one of those weekends that are absolutely filled with fun and not filled with productivity?

I had one of those. I had a great time at a few parties on Saturday, but when it came to doing some crafty things on Sunday, it was a big FAIL.

Well, you live and learn.

It started out great with a successful trip to Goodwill to get rid of all the old junk that was filling the office, and a trip to Michaels for all the supplies I needed for the jump start on holiday gifts I was going to make.

But the curtains I sewed were not the same length. They’re hanging up anyway.

The slippers I wanted to sew would fit a doll, not a real adult.

I lost motivation to make the candies I had planned.

My jump start turned out to only be a somewhat crafty weekend. I’ll try again later.

In the meantime, I have to come up with some fun ideas for a gift for the Lovely Package Exchange, hosted by the lovely Oh Hello Friend blog. My exchange partner is Lea from the Collect Collective, which is perfect, because who is easier to shop for than a collector? Yay!

Did you have better luck on projects this weekend?

-Liz

PS. I’m off to Minnesota tomorrow. I heard there’s snow, which I haven’t seen in about two years! Happy Thanksgiving to all, and here’s hoping I stay warm!

How To Reupholster a Mid-Century Chair

As you read in my previous post, my ugly brown chair has turned into a beautiful (mid-century) swan!

Want to know how my mom and I did it? Follow along in our *simple* 7 step, 2 day tutorial!

1. First, start with an ugly (but FREEEEE) brown chair. (Gray foam cushion not usually included.)

2. Take apart the chair carefully, making sure to remember where each piece of fabric needs to be stapled to the frame. Take out all tacks and staples as you go. 

The old staples make a cool art piece if you keep them all in one place: (You don’t want to step on these things!)

3. Sew some welting. Sew like 20 yards of it. This can be done simultaneously as your partner takes apart the chair. 4. Sew the welting together with some fabric to form a slip cover for the arms. This may take some maneuvering, especially if the arms are tapered and smaller on the bottom than on the top. Make sure any lines or patterns match up in the fabric.  
5. Cut out a seat cushion from high density foam. Do not attempt to use gray foam that may have come with the chair. It’s not comfy! Luckily, foam was half off at the fabric store when I went on my singular trip!

Cover the cushion foam with batting, and then your sewed cover. (Did I miss the part where you sew a cover for the cushion? Oh yah, do that too!)

6. Carefully carefully staple each section of the remaining chair with a piece of fabric to the frame. Don’t worry about putting in too many staples! Remember to make sure your pattern goes in the same direction and lines up, and copy what was previously done on the chair. You can always take out a few staples if you need to readjust. 

7. Reattach arms and cover the bottom in a plain upholstery dust cover. It gives a nice finishing touch!

Ta-da! A perfect chair to curl up in!

I learned a few things on the way:

• Always check your fabric to make sure it is going in the right direction. The front of the arms originally had the pattern going horizontally, which looked funny. My mom had to redo them both for a professional look.
• The back of a chair can be tricky. You can use tack strips or decorative nail heads. We went for tack strips for a seamless look, but you only have one chance to get them in right. My mom said that this chair has her most perfect looking tack strip job on it.
• Want to restain or paint the legs of a chair? Make sure you do it before you begin to put the fabric back on. Otherwise you could mess up all your new fabric.
• My manual staple gun worked fine, but did require a bit of force. An electric one would work really well.
• This job would have been tedious all by myself. I have so much respect for people who do this professionally.
• I probably shouldn’t have spent $200 on fabric, but I’m so glad that I really really love it!

Would you or have you tackled a difficult upholstery job?

-Liz

Like what you read? Check out my other posts about this cute chair:

Club Chair Before and After

I’m Indecisive: Fabric

Club Chair Fabric

Meet My New Friend the Upholstered Chair

Linked to:

Tip Junkie, Ladybug Blessings, Hope Studios, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Not Just A Housewife, The Shabby Creek Cottage

Club Chair Before and After

After our little family trip to wine country last week my mom stayed a few extra days in California to help me with a little project called upholstery 101. My mom has upholstered numerous couches and chairs, and when she was my age she even had her own futon making business. So I was thrilled when she volunteered herself to help me out with reupholstering my found club chair. I’ve done a few seats before, but nothing this large scale, so it was nice to have a guide. Remember what it looked like before? It was in a neighbor’s yard, all ready to be thrown out. And boy, was that brown faux leather gross. It was sticky and dirty and ready to go.

And now it is gone! I didn’t even tell you which fabric I really picked after going back and forth and back and forth. I finally ordered Annie Selke Links in Taupe. I ordered 7 yards from joann.com and it was plenty. I think I have about 2 yards left (any takers for the extra?), and joann.com ships much faster than ordering custom fabric from the brick and mortar Joann.

We put the pattern on sideways so it would have a vertical effect on the low chair. I sanded and re-stained the legs so they would look nice and clean, like the new fabric. It’s all new and shiny and I just want to sit in it all of the time. Do you see all the cording? I think that may be my favorite part. That, and the sexy, sexy legs.I took Monday and Tuesday off work so I could learn about the process and help my mom as she worked. She mostly told me what to do and it took us both full days of working 8am to 5 or 6pm to finish it. Not a quick process.

I am proud of us, and proud that it looks really good. My grandma even told me it looks ‘professional’ on facebook. And she has definitely worked on her fair share of sewing and upholstery!

I am also proud that I only needed to take one trip to Joann in the two days of work. I had anticipated about 3 or 4, but we dealt with using thread that wasn’t meant for my sewing machine, and I was able to buy most of my supplies online beforehand. (I used onlinefabricstore.net, and despite a few bad reviews online I received all the correct supplies very quickly since I expedited shipping for 3 business days).

I’ll share some in progress photos and more about the upholstery process in a later post. Meanwhile, you can imagine me sitting curled up in this chair drinking a big cup of coffee (very careful not to spill any on the new fabric!).

-Liz

 

Want to know more about the process and how to recover an old chair? Check out my tutorial!

Pimp My House (For Halloween)

My house is pimped out for Halloween! At least the outside is.

I got my pumpkins out, made an orange felt wreath and stuck my Halloween pumpkin string lights in the ground.

I love Halloween, and I got my craft on a bit last weekend. I made the wreath after seeing a similar, pretty one I found on Pinterest (linked to here). It was super simple–I just cut out a bunch of circles from a large piece of orange felt freehand and folded them loosely to pin them onto a wreath form. Check out the previous link, or the original inspiration from Design Sponge for detailed instructions. I wasn’t so concerned about getting perfect circles, but I did have to readjust the pins a bit to get a consistent ’pack’ of the felt.

I carved my pumpkins after I took these pictures. So I might show you my spooky designs later this week

Hopefully the trick or treaters will appreciate my work next Monday night! (Yeah right!)

-Liz

How To: Paint A Lattice Border

One of my favorite DIY elements in my newly decorated guest room is the lattice border I painted around this basic mirror. It was simple to do, but took a bit of time taping and waiting for layers of paint to dry. I was inspired by a feature in Martha Stewart Living that suggested painting this border on a door to spice it up.  I’m embracing the theme (see my new blog logo) and used it for this wall.

First, I prepped the walls by painting them gray. Then, I taped out a border equidistant around the mirror with a strip of painters tape. This tape would become the width of the single rectangle (in white), of 1 inch. Then I took two pieces of tape and placed them on either side of the first to create a stencil. I removed the first piece and had a nice, even line around the mirror. I painted a few coats of white glossy paint and removed the tape while it was still wet. The white is the same paint as the trim in this room (and the rest of the house).

For the second layer I decided that it should be the same width away from the first line, so I just used one strip of tape to be a buffer. I wanted the second layer to be slightly wider than the white part (1.25 inches) so I measured 1.25″ away from my piece of tape to place the second piece of tape. After both of these pieces were in place and lined up, it looked like this:I painted this ‘stencil’ Behr Eucalyptus Leaf turquoise in a glossy finish and removed the tape while the paint was still wet. I got crisp lines both times, for the finished look below!

Alternately, you could switch the colors, or make the solid rectangle be on top of the angled one by switching the order of taping and painting.

This project was not hard, it just required a bit of measuring and basic math.

I think it’s a very classic design done in a simple way. I’ve come to appreciate geometry in home decor, and would like to design a room with only references to geometry at one point, mainly inspired by this painting. I could use the golden rectangle, the Pythagorean theorem, geodesic domes, spheres, tessalations, I could go on. Maybe geometry was my favorite math class…

-Liz

The Big Reveal: Guest Room Before and After

The guest room is finally together. I have a few things left to touch up, but it is finished and awaiting its first new guest! Remember when I started working on the guest room? I cleared everything out and started with a ‘White Box Challenge,’ just like on Design Star! Well, this season of Design Star is now complete (yay Meg!), and it took me a lot longer than an HGTV designer to get this done. I was in no hurry, but I may want to reconsider thinking about going on Design Star, ever. Remember what my guest room looked like before it was cleaned out? It was boring and not cohesive and not welcoming to my guests.

Well, I cleaned it out and took everything out (and gave away that awful, ugly treadmill) so I could start anew. The Guest Bedroom Whitebox Challenge was born! I gave myself a strict $200 budget to make this into a welcoming, warm, colorful space.

White Box Challenge

I managed to stick to the budget by using things that I already had, making things that I needed to add, and using one Crate and Barrel gift certificate to add a few new things.

Things I kept:

• Bed (Ikea)
• Bedspread (Dwell Studio from Target)
• Side Table (Estate sale find)
• Chair (Crate and Barrel, part of my 6 piece dining set)

Things I made:

• Paint chip art
• Pelmet
• Marshmallow bench
• A few pillows
• Mirror border

Things from ‘shopping’ my house:

• Mini desk (Ikea, used to be my sewing table, but I barely used it)
• Artwork (other than paint chip)
• Lamps (Vintage)
• Vase and Billy Button flowers (from the garden)
• Books
• Typewriter
• White bedspread (Vintage, replaced from my bed with a brand new steal of a deal from C&B.)

Totally new things:

• Carafe (Crate and Barrel)
• Mirror (Home Depot)
• Gray paint (Home Depot)

Take a look at the new space.

I love it! But there are still a few things I would change. I like the lattice border around the mirror (see way below), and I think the pictures above the bed are a bit small in scale, so I might paint a border on that wall too, or add some new or different art. I think there needs to be art above the tables on either side of the bed as well. Also, the wall by the floor lamp, below, needs to be filled with something, too.

The bench isn’t quite finished yet. I still have to put the tufted buttons on. There was a delay since I didn’t have any upholstery thread, and my other thread just snapped. That is on the to do list.

I have a white garden stool outside, that might look good in this room, but I’m not sure if it needs it, or where it should go.

Here are a few more detail pictures. Yay!

Doesn't it look comfy and colorful? Just how I like to decorate!

Will you come visit me? You’re welcome to stay in my new guest bedroom!

I hope to share a few of my projects more in depth over the next few weeks, so be on the lookout!

-Liz

Linked to: Flaunt It Friday, Amaze Me Monday, Creative Bloggers Party and Hop, Sunday Showcase Party