Peek at Ottoman Redo

Quite some time ago I bought a drop cloth from Home Depot for two reasons.  I was needing to make a new slip cover for the ottoman in the family room and I had been reading about all the amazing things other bloggers were doing with these drop cloths.

I brought it home and washed it with detergent and bleach 3 times at least to soften it and lighten the color a bit.  And then it sat and sat and sat.  Christmas came and went and still it sat.

Finally earlier this week I cut the pieces that I needed from this huge piece or canvas cloth, but did not get to anything else on it that day.  Yesterday, I finally got the pieces out and started doing things.

First I taped off and using craft paint painted the piece that will be the top.

Sort of looks like driving down the road, huh, with the stripes getting narrower the further away it is.  It's the angle of the camera, though.  The stripes are pretty even, although I did want it to look like an old French grain bag so it wouldn't look perfect.  Underneath the cloth were two contact covered foam core boards taped together so there would be no gap.  Since I was working on the island in my kitchen, I didn't want to get paint where it wasn't supposed to be.  Hmmm, those two dots on my T-shirt don't count, do they?  I think the bottle burped when I opened it!

Here is a detail of what it looks like. 

The next thing I did was to make miles and miles of piping as this is a tailored slipcover.

This is really a pretty easy job, but I did break two needles because I forgot to move the needle to the left when I had to shut the machine off and do something else for a while.  The machine resets both the needle position and stitch length when turned off.

Today I will start stitching the pieces together.  It's been probably 7 or 8 years since the last slipcover was made, so it is definitely time for a new one!  The old one was made from white canvas and has been washed so many times, but no longer looks it's best.  We DO put our feet on this ottoman so it does not stay clean looking all the time!

In the next installment, I'll show you the finished slipcover.

XOXO

Lois