Good Idea But Not So Good In Life

I've been a little absent from the blog lately. Not because I am not sewing. I was working on a lengthy assembly line project. With our foreign service life we are pretty much all given the same furniture all over the world. Some people choose to bring their own furniture with them, but we did not have much at the moment we started this nomadic kind of life, so we went with the standard state department furniture. Which is not that bad but it wasn't purchased with the little kids in mind. It is not as wipe-able as I would like it to be. The dining chairs get the most wear and tear with our kids. So I got an idea that I could make some chair covers that would be washable.

Well, it took me a month to finish covers for all eight chairs we have. It didn't help when I decided to add a water resistant layer and had to order and wait for the fabric to get here. It took me a couple of hours to figure out the pattern and make the first cover.

After that it all went like an assembly line. I was getting a little tired of sewing the same things over and over. Then I finally finished them all and sighed with relief. Hopefully I will never have to do it again. Too tedious.

I made two different types of corners. Not because I wanted to see how many corner types I can come up with BUT because I had limited fabric amount. First type consists of three valance (what do you call the bottom strip of a chair cover?) pieces and little tiny one in between of them.

The second one is just one long piece with two pleats at the corners. They kind of looked wacky so I had to sew little tacks to keep them together which looks a little better.

So after I put them on the chairs I got quite disappointed with them. As they look nice on individual chair, they look a little weird when all together on eight chairs. I don't even know how to explain the feelings I have about them. It just doesn't look as good as I wish it did. I would rather get some chairs that are easy to wipe but for a couple of reasons we cannot do that right now so I will have to endure this ugliness for another couple of years. Or if they bug me too much I will just take them off and Matt would have to go back to cleaning the chairs every week.

In other news I am getting ready for the KCW. It is happening in a week so I better be ready by then. Last time I was not prepared and it was not as enjoyable as I wish it was.