From old to new – Let the Groove out!

What you see is what you get? Not every time :)!! Especially furniture needs to be recovered or revalued from time to time – like our gem here. It’s an 200 years old massive wooden bench covered with hogskin. The grandparents of my father’s first wife (the mother of my four half sisters) were carpenters specialised in manufacture of anthroposophical furniture. Means, no nails, no glue – all sticked perfectly together.

My sister Karoline had the bench before me and it will always stay in this family. So, Karoline did the first makeover years ago – she bought two mattresses and coated them with a really 80’s-like fabric – cool but it had its days ;):

The pattern was so special (didn’t fit well to our home) that we did the worst thing ever – covered it completely with a white IKEA blanket:

A shame, isn’t it ;(? On our March-home-vacation this year, we decided to change it – finally!!! From the fotos above you can see a little impression of the new style – we thought about a mix of well-being, heartiness but also heat – CORD FABRIC – no, 70’s-like FOXY ORANGE CORD FABRIC would look amazing!

We were so happy having one of our first “click&collect” meetings during this second (long lasting) lockdown at my favourite drapery, the Stoffbox in Bremen’s Viertel. There, we found the perfect fabrics to work with: first – the desired foxy orange cord. Unfortunately, there were only 3 meters left (we needed 6 meters for both mattresses) – an individual item – but we went for it – no chance for switching ideas :). The polite sales lady from Stoffbox suggested to work with a second fabric – a canvas in a light beige or brown colour. Taken! But instead of a light beige tone, we chose a bright turquoise canvas, pretty robust and smooth. And best thing we noticed back at home: it fits perfectly to our new fancy side table :D!!

A three-day-work-marathon started. I never sewed such a big coat for a cushion before in my life :). I was really afraid to fail with the machine, therefore, I decided to sew all by hand (crazy, I know!!!). For me it worked well – I had full control and with every seam I got more confident. And what also helped a lot: we had one whole week of rain – so you didn’t miss out on anything staying at home and sewing for hours and hours ;). Put my favourite playlist on – Nick Waterhouse up and down – cannot get enough of his “Place Names” – very enjoyed the drive:

We had even enough fabric left to make two extra pillowcases out of it! We’re really pleased with our new 70’s-Love-Cave-Interpretation 😀 – our lambskin and fur pillow look awesome on it as well – groovey, Baby! Here comes the final result:

Wishing you a lot of inspiration and a fancy weekend!!
magdalenaarte