Chair Slips

For the past couple of years my kitchen chairs have been white slipcovered parsons chairs.     The chairs are so comfy and the slipcovers wash up pretty well buuuuuut….I have not actually bought kitchen chairs in over 20 years.     For a long time, I had some ladderback chairs my mama and daddy bought for me in the 70’s, then when I got remarried David and I got some mismatched chairs at auctions until I borrowed the parsons chairs from son and DIL.     When we put mama in assisted living last year, she had 6 really nice ladderback chairs that have been in storage and I decided I’d like to use two of them, mixing it up with two chairs I recently ordered from World Market.    Plus, the legs on my kitchen table are so gorgeous and I hated hiding them with the parsons chairs.

Love the legs of this table!

I also love my new chairs from World Market!

A while back I saw a cute “slipcover” that Chris at Just Beachy made for her ladderback chairs and I so wanted to steal borrow this idea for my chairs.    

I don’t have a tutorial but they were pretty simple, with the exception of the ruffle.    I don’t have a ruffler (is that what it’s called) on my machine so they are trial and error (mostly error) ruffles.   In fact, I will eventually take the one off on hubby’s chair and re-do it (eventually – does day ever come?)     I simply determined the length I wanted my slipcover to come to on the front and back of the chair, and cut two equal rectangles to that measurement.    Then I cut my ruffle 3 1/2 times the width of the chair back and added the side tabs.     Finally, I stenciled the date of our birthday on the back (as Chris did on her chairs) and that’s it!     I am not a seamstress…..let me say that again, I AM NOT A SEAMSTRESS!   But they turned out pretty well so I can live with my mistakes.    (In case you’re wondering, I used leftover drop cloths for my slips so these cost me next to nothing to make)

WARNING!   PICTURE OVERLOAD AHEAD…..

   

Close up of the stencil (this is MY chair….my birthday is September 12th)

Front view of chair slip (still loving my baker’s rack I got for my birthday….you can read about that here)

  

Looking into the kitchen from the den (oh, look at the green fan - since we took down the ceiling fan, I have to keep a fan on the counter to stay comfortable)

  

I love the mix of the two chair styles

First attempt at a ruffle….too skimpy and not sure what’s going on with those “wings” …..I will definately re-do this ruffle!   You live and learn, right?

Hubby’s birth date (September 24th)  (And you can see that side seam where my bobbin was going out so I did rip out that ugly thread and it looks much better now)

 

 

Simple centerpiece using an old dough bowl with “faux” pears

Thanks for stopping by today.    I’m heading to L.A. (lower Alabama) on Friday for a nice 3 day visit with my best friend, who I have not seen since March.    I can’t wait!