After getting all excited about the Sunbrella fabric in the last upholstery post, I went home and measured up the lounge and chairs to see how much I needed (lots of complicated measurements there) only to discover that I would need approximately 24 metres of fabric. At $50 a meter, that ended up being $1200; way too much for me. I am not willing to spend thousands on a piece of furniture, especially when I am new to the hobby and don’t know what I am doing.

I ended up going to Spotlight (online of course) and matching the colours as closely as I could (probably not that close, given the nature of digital monitors and human perception) and buying $500 worth of fabric. I also ordered some bits and pieces such as cardboard strips, upholstery nails and thread and a huge load of wadding (oh and a little upholstery tool kit) from an online upholstery store based in South Australia. Then I waited…

During the wait I discovered (by watching even more YouTube videos) that I would need another staple gun as the two hand operated ones we own do not have staples long enough for upholstery. The staple gun and a big box of staples was purchased before the fabric arrived.

Then I received an email informing me that the cotton wadding I had ordered was out of stock and no suitable natural alternative was available. I searched all over the internet without finding what I wanted, until my accidentally genius partner said “Can you use pure wool as wadding?”, some research revealed that you can indeed use pure wool batting to pad out upholstery. This little discovery may have saved me $100 dollars and cleared off half a shelf in my craft room. Wool is commonly used to wrap seating and back cushions as it compresses to a much greater degree than cotton, meaning that if I use it on the deck (the base that the cushions sit on) and back rest areas of the lounge I will need to use much more of it to get the same amount of padding. I will also need to put a fabric cover over the wadding to help prevent felting.

In my craft room at present I have about a wool bale of various fleeces, some are too fine and beautiful to use as sofa stuffing, but others are a bit course and hard to spin. I will use a pile of these fleeces, washed and carded, to stuff my lounge. I also have a lot of cotton fabric from sheets and quilt covers in my fabric stash that can be used to put a layer over the wool batting before I cover it with the final fabric. I knew there would be a way to up-cycle or re-use things in this new hobby (there always is).

In the process of researching this project I discovered a great YouTube channel on natural upholstery. This channel is dedicated to using natural materials to reupholster furniture (right up my alley). I found some really interesting ideas and tips here.

So the fabric began to arrive in bits and pieces; the red came first. It is very red…almost iridescent, luckily it will be used for the deck and for the stripes on the inside backs, so the really bright colour will not be over powering (I hope).

I followed the instructions on the various YouTube clips and used the old fabric as a template to cut the new piece. Then I stitched a seam across it to sew the seam between the deck and the front padded bit. This little strip at the front should be slightly higher than the deck behind it (to help hold the cushion in the seat), so I padded it out with raw (scoured and carded) wool and put two layers of cotton batting over the lot. I decided to re-use the cotton and wool felt (the grey stuff) that was already on the chair and to just add a bit more padding to the thin bits.

Of course, after I had sewn the seam, by hand, with a curved needle, I discovered that the fabric was not quite wide enough (I made it a bit bigger than the template on all sides, not sure why it was too short). So rather than undo the sewing and cut another piece, I hand sewed some strips of scrap fabric to the short edges and continued on. The deck for the next chair will be cut MUCH wider than the template.

Lastly, I stapled the fabric down tight with my trusty new staple gun. It took a lot of pulling, snipping easement cuts and smoothing fabric, but I think it came out alright.

I am enjoying this process and learning a new skill. The red is so much brighter than it appears to be on the screen, luckily this bit will be hidden by a cushion most of the time.