I finished up my class and have now taken the couch home, unfortunately even though I am so close to being done I haven't managed to scrape up the time to finish it COMPLETELY. Here is where I am at currently, all that is left is to finish attaching the welt cord around the front base and then deciding what type of nailhead trim I want to use!

To Be Continued...

I am just doing a quick update to include my most recent progress photo from this weekend.

Top Be Continued...

I started out very optimistic about the ability to get the dye to take and I am sorry to say it was epic fail. I have been avoiding posting about it due the the massive level of fail. I solemnly swear to NEVER try to dye anything grey again. I did finally come up with a solution to get a look similar to what I wanted, but not really exactly it. I will do another post with that process, in the mean time I wanted to post my progress on the couch! It is really coming along and should be finished soon :)

Here are some photos from my night dying... 

And on to the more exciting stuff... Progress photos!

To Be Continued...

Now this couch is ready for everything else!

I am lucky that in Austin we have a wonderful re-upholstery shop that give 6 week classes on re-upholstery! - Check them out at Austin Upholstery Studio. I did a class with them before to remake a wingback chair with amazing results.

So... For this piece I enrolled again in the class and am two sessions in, check out the progress so far: 

Now we are coming to the conundrum... fabric. 

I want to go with new, different and VERY cutting edge modern to go against my old standby "traditional antique" look. What I want to do is an oatmeal linen (I know, I know, that isn't really cutting edge!). But I want to do a Dip Dye ombre effect on it. I want to have a dark charcoal grey that fades back into the natural linen color. Unfortunately, grey seems to be the "unicorn" of dying. I procured my linen fabric (I got it at JoAnn for 50% off!), but in trying to get the color I want from the limited dye selection at JoAnn just isn't working.


I have played with Dip Dye for other colors as testing for *another upcoming project* and have had great success starting with a dye solution of almost entirely water for the initial fade from the fabric base color, then pulling the fabric up and adding additional dye each time. Unfortunately the black dye's I've tried seem to be so heavily based in other colors that watering the mix doesn't work very well.

 As you can see, from left to right: 

• Rit liquid (which I normally love and am a big fan of) black came out a beautiful deep eggplant purple... but not grey
• Dylon Black powder came out more dark teal
• Rit Pearl Grey is somewhat blueish (but best I have tried so far)
• And a combination of equal parts Rit Powder black and Royal Blue (as shown by Steinlaufandstoller.com. Their recommended mix probably works great for charcoal grey at the right water consistency, but not for the ultra watered down version I needed) came out blue
  

So being stubborn, I found a site that specializes in dye's called DharmaTrading and ordered what should *fingers crossed* work perfectly! I will keep you updated as soon as that gets in!


To Be Continued...

My husband and I just moved into a new house. In the last house we had lots of traditional antiques, but I wanted to change things up at the new place. After getting into some debates about the new decor (surprisingly my husband was VERY opposed to mid-century modern) we decided to go with a more eclectic mix of furniture. This is great though because it opens the door for me to do a LOT of projects :)

One of the first... we needed more seating in the living room and I have been wanting to make over a fainting couch for a while, and lucky me, craigslist happened to be nice enough to have EXACTLY what I was dreaming of! 

Or at least something I could turn INTO exactly what I was dreaming of. Enter  this little beauty pictured. Or as I like to refer to her, "Sparkles and Spirals" for the beyond horrible sparkly floral fabric. 

To Be Continued...