 The pansy is finished but the assembly didn't go that well. Here are the finishing directions with my actions after them. Cut a piece of millinery wire 5 inches long. I cut a piece of floral wire 5 inches long. Bend 1/2 inch of each end back. I don't know why but I still bent each end back 1/2 inch. Wind green around wire to cover it. The wire is green so I skipped this. Sew one end to back of flower. If I do that how do I get the calyx on since the wires are bent? I waited to do this. Run a thread through the 5 pieces of calyx 1/4 inch from the end, draw tightly together and sew securely. Push stem through center of calyx. If I draw it tightly together how will I push the stem through the center of it? I unbent the "top" and poked the wire through the calyx somehow and then put the flower through it and bent the wire back down through it. Then I sort of sewed the calyx to the flower and wrapped the remaining green thread around the wire and sewed the leaves to that. Then I took a picture that hid most of the stray threads and then I threw it away.  Unedited photo I did work on the chair a little bit yesterday. I measured all of the pieces and made detailed measurements of the seat back. I'm ready to make a muslin version. I just need to find some upholstery buttons to cover and a 12 inch needle to sew those in.
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The pansy isn't quite finished. The pieces are completed but they aren't assembled.  There's the purple flower, two short leaves, one long leaves and the tiny green pieces are the calyx. The only problem I had with the pattern is the formatting. It's hard to keep track of where you are with the way the extended stitches are written so I had to write it out in a slightly different format that was easier and a little bigger. The next part is the finishing - I have floral wire so I'm going to use that instead of millinery wire. I spent about two hours last weekend and one hour yesterday working on taking apart the chair and documenting the pieces as I went. Today will be a little too hot to work in the garage so no work on the chair today. As of yesterday all of the fabric has been removed from the back of the chair including the buttons. It took about two hours to remove the staples.  Inside batting and foam. The strings you see are where the buttons are tied to the metal springs.
I found some fabric I like but I don't know if JoAnne Fabric had enough of it. It was in their clearance sale at $15.99 yd. They won't cut swatches for you so I bought a yard thinking if I didn't want to use it on this chair I could cover one of our ottomans with it.  I have a couple of other things I'm thinking about changing. The inside back is done in pieces with the buttons at the corners. Is the piecing important or can I just do one piece with buttons? I think the piecing helps with the structure so the buttons don't pull and tear the fabric. But, it looks much so more complicated...  Can I leave the pillow part of the back out? It's a separate piece that sits on top of the piece with the buttons.  Next week I'll have a finished pansy to show and then the blog is going to pivot to a slightly different craft across time. I'm going to attempt to reupholster this beautiful chair:
The first question people ask when I tell them about this is, "Why? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just get a new one?". There are several reasons to reupholster this chair in particular:
The next question is, "Have you ever done reupholstery?". I've only done simple things like dining room chairs and ottomans. Nothing that needed more than cutting and stapling so this is by far the most ambitious project I've started. I've been watching videos and I have some library resources. I'm going to take it pretty slow and take a lot of pictures and mark everything clearly. I originally thought maybe I could keep some of the original fabric but it's nearly impossible to match or find a good contrast to the burnt orange fabric. I'll have to recover the whole thing and I'll update this blog every week with the progress. I know you're thinking, can you get some of that really cool fabric in the first picture that's on the foot rest and arms? Even if I could, getting it lined up and straight on the chair is a level of difficulty I'm not going to attempt.   The pansy bouquet pattern is the winner for August. I thought the place mat would do better because I had the special yarn for it but it only got 4 votes. The materials:
 The pattern:
Each pansy consists of a flower, five calyx petals, two short leaves and two long leaves. The crochet directions seem easy but the finishing directions are somewhat short so I may be winging it on that part. I think I'm only going to do one pansy to start with and see how that goes. Next week I'll tell you about my next big project! Hot August Night by Neil Diamond was recorded live at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. Some of the biggest solar flares were seen and the Summer Olympics were being held in Munich. Top 40 songs included
The bestselling fiction book was Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach with The Winds of War by Herman Wouk in second.  The August 1972 Workbasket and Home Arts Magazine had four crochet patterns. You’ll choose between the Place Mat/Hot Plate/Coaster and the Pansy Bouquet. The Place Mat/Hot Plate/Coaster uses Spinnerin Mardi Gras! Remember that from June?   I think I still have enough left to make at least one of the Place Mats. The Pansy Bouquet uses Knit-Cro-Sheen in green, shaded lavender and purple. I’m pretty sure I have all of those colors.  Voting will be up until Friday night!
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