Yes, yes, I know that the Orla-esque print is everywhere, but I've been a fan of the stem print since back in the day when you could only find Orla Kiely in the Made in Ireland store. Before Target and Anthropologie and everyone and their dog fell in love with her. And I still love it, so maybe this is my ode to Orla chair, since I very much doubt I'll ever get to have this one. Sigh, so pretty....But back to the rocker. Will and I have been talking about adding some kind of print to the white slipcover on our couch and I decided that maybe trying it out on the cost-me-all-of-$15-to-make chair slipcover might be a good idea. And now I really like the white couch/orange mid century chair/white and orange printed rocker thing we've got going, so it may just stay this way. Or I may get really adventurous and make a few slipcovers for the chair so I can change things out when I get bored.
The slipcover was relatively easy, if a little time consuming. The back of the chair is an odd shape to fit well since it has to be loose enough to fit over that wide top but tight enough not to bag once it's on. I built it inside out, cutting out each piece and then pinning together and sewing the seams one at a time. There was a lot of back and forth from the chair to the sewing machine and a lot of pins, but it all worked out. I also painted the rockers and legs to cover up the weird smear marks that I made trying to fix the loose rocker long ago.
To make this print I used one of my all time favorite techniques - freezer paper stencils. If I was going to be stranded on an island and I could only bring one craft item, it would probably be freezer paper. That's assuming that I'd be needing to do crafts on this island of course, and really, I guess I'd need a few other things, like, say, something to use the freezer paper on. But you get the idea. I love the stuff. In fact, our coffee table is currently wrapped in it (plastic side down) so we can draw and color to our hearts content around here without worrying about Mr. Smells A Lot markers leaking through onto the actual table.
If you have a hankering to try out freezer paper as a fabric stencil, just cut out the image you want printed and iron it on with a hot, dry iron and paint away. I generally take the stencil off when the paint is still wet. I tell myself its to prevent any excess paint oozing off the paper and under the stencil, but really it's because I'm impatient to see what it looks like. There is always a magical sort of moment when you peel away the paper to find a crisp lined print remaining on your fabric. In fact, it's got my fingers itching to do another freezer paper stenciling furniture project. Maybe it's time to replace the dining room chair covers again...
In other news, Will is home (yay!) and he brought me three new Oliver+ S patterns that my lovely mother in law picked up at my favorite fabric store (squee!) the pie was yummy (num!) and I'm going to start teaching a sewing class for girls next week (whoo-hoo!), with more classes to follow I hope (maybe even some for grown-ups) so now I just need to stop sounding like a tragic consumptive in a Victorian novel (cough cough cough).