Project two, making a childs armchair

I have never had much money to spare, so when my first daughter came along, I was horrified at the price of kids sofas and chairs. I had an old plastic crate, so I chopped one side off with a hacksaw. I then had some pieces of foam lying around which I cut to size for what was to be the back of the chair and the base. I then tied these in place so they would not fall out when the cover was on. I had some wadding for quilts which I folded over the crate sides to form the arms of the chair and sewed them in place. I had some upholstery fabric which I basically wrapped around the whole deal and then sewed side pannels on for the arms. On the bottom I closed the chair with press studs. Every child makes mucky messes on chairs you have to be able to clean the cover. This chair is still kicking around, mind you a darker colour material would have been a better idea as you can hardley see it was yellow now.

I spent 18 months living in the middle of a State Park, caretaking a farm, with my first husband. The only thing was we had no electicity and we also had to tow the car a kilometer up the drive in winter to get out of there. Fortunately we did have a phone or I would not have agreed to live under those conditions. I spent hours a day meditating as there really was not much else to do. However I did get into a bit of upholstery in this time. A lady gave me two chairs that her ducks were using. I basically took the old rocking chairs and pulled them apart bit by bit and put them back together. I had to buy quite a few expensive upholstery tools but I learnt heaps and got a great deal of satisfaction from restoring these lovely old chairs.

If you have any comments email Alyssa at alyssa@alyssamaryrose.com