Antique Chair, part 11

The fabric that my customer chooses is a high quality fabric from my supplier, Duralee Fabrics. After consulting with my client they made the decision based on quality, color to go with their décor and texture and pattern to compliment the beauty of the chair. Allow yourself plenty. In this case I cut out a 34 x34 inch piece. This will allow me to have some excess to hold on to when I stretch the fabric to the chair. I “tacked” each side to the frame. Notice how after tacking the fabric to the side rails I folded the fabric over just touching the front and rear uprights. This fabric has an overall type of pattern. But if you look closely there are lines and a red dot that runs through it. I always prefer running any lines vertically, which I have done here. Make sure your fabric is straight on the chair. Notice the underside of the fabric with its red thread running horizontally. That line should be equal on both sides of the chair. Cutting the fabric around the uprights is critical. You don’t want to see any padding, unfinished frame, or frayed edges because the cut was too deep or puckers because the cut was to shallow. I have marked the back side of the fabric with my chalk to show where I am going to make my cut. I tend to err on the side of to much fabric. I can slays go back and snip the cuts to make it fit. Notice also that my cut is a Y shape. This cut allows enough fabric to go around the corner and to be able to fold over and tuck between the padding and the frame. On the “I” part of the “Y” there will be flaps of fabric that you will have to trim. Allow yourself plenty but not so much as to add to much bulk in the corner. At this point you may have to add or remove some of the padding. I added a little to this corner. Work the fabric to make it fit and “tack” the corners down. While working this corner I was also mindful of what the pattern was doing. There will always be a little distortion of lines when you are going around uprights and corners. But that needs to be kept at a minimum. When you focus from the center of the chair you want to make sure that vertical lines are straight and symmetrical. So I have to make sure that when working on this one corner is that I don’t “pull” the fabric over so much as to distort the line on the other corner. After I worked the one corner to where I liked it, I tacked it down and moved to the next corner and repeated the process. All the while I am checking my fabric front to rear and side to side pulling and smoothing the fabric to see if I am going to run into any problems along the way. Time, patience and a critical eye will pay off in professional looking results. Now move to the front corners.