A new adventure

Last summer, Alyssa found two Danish Modern chairs on Craig's List. They would be called Danish Modern by anyone over 50. They are now called mid-century modern. I guess that's what over 50 means. At any rate, I traveled to Minneapolis for a weekend of fabric shopping sometime in July, I think. We found the perfect fabric for the chairs and her apartment. It was a bit pricier that what we had envisioned, but it was that ever-elusive perfect fabric, so Alyssa ordered and we planned to upholster new cushions in the fall. Other things happened, but the chairs didn't. Until this past weekend.

In the meantime, Ned did a beautiful refinishing job on the chairs. We started with cushions cut and marked and ready to cover. After wrapping the cushions in batting and making muslin covers for them -- well, not muslin but light colored calico that I just happened to have on hand because I bought it for the backing of the yellow and white quilt promised for Alyssa's college graduation when she was living in a co-op in Madison in a little room with a little bed and that's long past and now the quilt has to be bigger and lucky for me she keeps going to school so continues to have more graduations, but swears the PhD is it, so I'd better get cracking on that quilt -- we were ready to cut into the upholstery fabric. Talk about nerve-wracking.

But we did it and we did it well. And we did it while making a turkey on the grill for Karl's birthday dinner and having Kit and Violet arrive and making roasted sweet potatoes and beet and carrot slaw and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, There was only one really stupid goof and it was mine, so while I did some painstaking ripping, Alyssa kept the cooking going and we did what we had never done before: Put on a delicious turkey birthday dinner for Karl's 24th birthday and upholster two chair cushions. We all gobbled up the dinner too quickly to get a good picture of that, but here is the chair against an artistic backdrop of quilts draped over the rolls of batting and upholstery fabric and webbing etc., piled against the living room furniture. We both feel as if we can handle one more chair. Alyssa, in fact, took all supplies home with her to either get the cushions cut and wrapped before returning in a couple of weeks or maybe even completing them entirely on her own.

As for me, I am very happy that the upholstery job on my find of a lifetime chair will be done by a professional. And, I am happy to report that I found the fabric for it over the weekend, too. It's a great little red print with just enough green and gold in it to tie it in with the other living room furniture. I think it will be a beauty and hope it's the last piece of upholstery I have to deal with for quite some time. Although it's fun to find new things and try new things and feel the sense of accomplishment of doing something new and doing it well, when all is said and done, I'd rather be quilting ...