Patterns

Monday 16 June 2014

Granny Chair Ta-Dah!

Finished!!! I am just going to take a moment to enjoy that feeling. Ah lovely :)

It has been an epic weekend of sewing, sewing and more sewing but the final stitch has just been made so I can at last see if my imagination matches the reality of what I have made.

For those of you that aren't up to speed with this latest project, I acquired an old nursery chair that used to belong to my Granny. It really was not my cup of tea in the pale green that it had been upholstered in, but I absolutely loved this chair; the childhood memories and the shape of it, so I decided to make a new covering and of course that meant a lot of crocheting!



At first I had ideas of random different coloured squares in a patchwork effect, this soon evolved into putting the colours in a graduated spectrum because I just love them like that.

 
The back and the bottom of the chair needed covering too and I settled on a good old fashioned granny stripe for that. The main reason for that choice was it seemed like the easiest way to get the shape I needed.

All the main parts were made, just a marathon of sewing up to do. I got the back and the seat squares together over the weekend and I was so happy with them! Look at how pretty the colours are like this:


Just wonderful. But was it? There is no denying that the squares look good but would they go with the random granny stripes that I had knocked up for the rest of the covering? Last night I was extremely close to throwing the stripy bits away and making new stripes, in a less random colour progression. That seemed like such a waste though so I decided to just sew up what I had and if it didn't work I would just make another covering. It was also at this point that I started to get worried about having shared all the updates so far. I wished I had kept it a secret until it was finished, just in case it turned out horribly!
That isn't what my crochet is about though, it's as much about the process as it is about the end result. Part of that process was putting all the parts together, definitely not as much fun as crocheting but necessary.


Throughout the entire construction of the chair cover I have been measuring it against the chair, making adjustments and seeing how it would work and what I needed to do to make it work. This has involved a lot of pinning, taking it apart, re-pinning and so on. Unfortunately pins don't hold too well with woolly things so for the actual sewing up process I found that making tacks all around the edges, where they had to be sewn together, was the only way of holding all the parts in place.

I started sewing the seat cover to the bottom stripey piece last night and got across one square and realised I had to stop, my eyes had finally stopped working properly after all the square-sewing and I was ruining all my hard work through impatience to get it finished.
Bright and early this morning (with both eyes working as well as they can) I got going again and oh my word it was worth it!

All my worries about it not looking good enough or the stripes not working with the squares are gone and well, it looks even better than it did in my imagination.

Want to see?


Ta-Dah!!!





Where it will probably live...


 In the hunt for better light for pictures on this grey day...

I LOVE IT!!!

I've got yarn-bombing fever, I am now looking around the house trying to think of what I can give the cheerful woolly treatment next! Although I do think I need a break from this type of haphazard crochet and want to make something repetitive that doesn't require a lot of thought, just hooky.

I do hope you like my new Granny Chair, it is now my favourite chair, almost too pretty to sit on, I just want to look at it :)

XXX

7 comments:

  1. Great job. That took a lot of work. Love the chair now.

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  2. That is amazing! I wish I had the patience for something like this x

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    1. Thanks Sue, I thoroughly enjoyed doing it! It is still looking superb, mainly due to me not allowing any one (even the cat) to sit on it :) xxx

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  3. WOW Abi, this is absolutely incredible, I LOVE the way you've used the colours with your squares it's a true beauty for sure.
    What a pleasure to find your blog, your crochet is yummy!
    Lucexxxxxx

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  4. I too, just found you and ta-da-there was the chair right before me. I am in the process of making Attic's colorblock cushion and I am loving it but only have a lonesome old sofa to put it on and hoping it will look good. Thank you for the inspiration.

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  5. Just found this via Attic 24 - it's stunning, wow! Absolutely gorgeous

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