Patriotic Chair

I believe this is the last project to complete from this pile of  'junk'.  All the other projects have been completed.  The chair I will be telling you about today is the one with the cream seat and 4 turned spindles in the back.  I found a similar idea on eBay long ago and wanted to duplicate the look with my twist on it.  I was  needing an auction project and living in a large military community, a patriotic item would be popular.

I had always wanted to quilt.  My grandmother made at least 75 plus quilts in her day. She began quilting with the St. Boniface Ladies Quilting Circle while she was in her early teens and continued to quilt until her mid 90's. 

Not having any formal learning about quilting, I thought I would try my hand at it.  I found three fabrics: a red, a textured off white and a blue for this seat covering.  I liked the idea of using different textures.  In order to make a pattern similar to our own flag, this is the chair seat covering prior to attaching it to the chair.  The ribboned rectangle to the side will be a pillow that will hang from the back of the chair.  Notice that both sides of the pillow are contrasting fabrics so it can be interchangeable.

I cut strips of red and white for the stripes and a deep blue with tiny stars to recreate the union.  After I measured the chair, I sewed the pieces together to give myself extra to tack under for the seat.  Using red grosgrain ribbon, I sewed two sets of ribbon into the top of a elongated pillow to stuff later for the chair back.  On one side were the red and white stripes and the reverse was the blue fabric.

The seat was then covered with foam and batting. The actual quilted seat cover topped the batting.  Prior to covering the chair seat, I took a trip to Home Depot.   I bought boat paint that was oil based and vibrant red.  I stripped the chair, primed it and gave it 3 coats of the red paint.  When it was dry, Mr. Thrifty helped me secure the seat back onto the chair.

This chair was auctioned off at the elementary school.  I had so much fun with this project, that I have completed two similar chairs since.

This chair was made for a dear friend.

This is the back of the chair that I did for myself.

And this is the chair that is used as my husband's office chair.

                                                              

During the month of July, this chair moves out to the foyer.

I found the Royal Crown cola vintage bottle box at an estate sale for $5.00.

Filling it with the cobalt blue oriental accessories complements the red in the chair and the books.  None of the items in the box have a patriotic theme to them, but combined, they give an 'out of the box'  red white and blue theme without the use actual flags.

Here is to the RED, WHITE and BLUE!

It is amazing how the red, white and blue brightens up the foyer.