katzies's Profile

I have been saving up money to buy Irish linen fabric for bed sheet and duvet. If you know simple sewing, you can whip up your own. You can buy extra wide pure Irish linen fabric at Thomas Ferguson in Ireland (http://www.fergusonsirishlinen.com/index.asp). Go to "Fabrics" section, and from there you can take your pick.

I did say I have been saving up, yes? This thing does not come cheap, esp. when you add shipping cost.

Kellyw & Kushkush (and all AT readers).

Most likely by now you're done with your projects. But I thought I share with you what little I know about the sanding and varnishing.

I sanded the wood in three stages, using coarser sand paper first (no. 60) to get rid of older varnishing and polyurethane layer, then medium (no. 100), and finer (no. 180, or higher if you want). Sanding is very tedious, esp. when done by hand. Use mask when you sand.

After sanding, I stained the wood. Be careful not to overstir the stain, you want the stain to be transparent enough to let the wood grain shine through. Last part was varnishing using polyurethane. After the first layer dried overnight, I sanded it using very fine metal wool before putting the second, final layer.

I hope this helps.

Katzies.

All, thank you for your kind comments.

Doogle: I don't have the exact count, but roughly it is about $ 150-ish, which includes around $ 60-ish for all the tools that I consider as investment and $ 70-ish for the fabric etc. I sourced the fabric, polyester batting and jute band from The Fabric Outlet in 17th and Mission during one of their 60 percent discount days. Then $ 20 for the stain and polyurethane layer. And oh, plus $ 15 for the chair.

Jenzoe: I bought about 4 yards of fabric, but that was 1 yard more than what I finally used.

Bepsf: I did it leisurely over a couple of months. I would take 1 or 1.5 or 2 hours break and worked on the chair to de-stress. The most difficult part is gluing the piping to the fabric by the chair's arm as you don't want to spill hot glue to your fabric, and pulling the thread to the chairs back when making the tufted buttons.

Reb: I sew the piping myself. It is not difficult. You just need a special foot for your sewing machine (a sewing store can tell you what foot to get for sewing piping) and a lot of patience to make sure your piping is sewn tightly.

Note: I found the old chair at Berkeley Urban Ore.