My New Headboard

Yesterday I went to The Needle Shop, a small fabric store here in Chicago.  I'd heard of them awhile ago on Etsy and had been meaning to go to their store, but never quite found the time.  Then a groupon to the Needle Shop came up...can't pass up a discount!  I finally headed over yesterday.  It was AWESOME!  As I said, it's a small store and it's not the place to go if you're just looking for basic supplies or a specific fabric.  But, if you want something unique, quirky, or fun, you'll love the Needle Shop.  Most of their fabrics are about $10/yard which is pretty reasonable.  They also have vinyl and upholstery fabrics.

Two of the fabrics I bought. {images via The Needle Shop}

If you customer service is what you want in a fabric store, you'll love them even more!  I spent an hour trying to pick which fabric to choose to recover my headboard.  The two guys working yesterday (forgot their names.  sorry!) were super friendly and put up with me and my indecisiveness.  They even pointed me to the nearby ribbon store and recommended some good things to do in Chicago come spring.  Now THAT'S customer service!

The headboard fabric I went with. {image via The Needle Shop}

In the end, I chose this super cute pink on pink fabric.  I had to use 2 separate fabric panels to make the headboard.  At first, I was simply going to use ribbon to hide the seam so the Needle Shop recommended me to Soutache, an awesome, super helpful ribbon and button shop.  The woman at Soutache was so nice...we sat at the table sorting through ribbons until we found the perfect colors and width.  Again, customer service is everything!  But after getting home and arranging the different pieces, I decided to add a panel of my old, green headboard fabric to brighten things up a bit.  I flanked the green with the navy and grey ribbons from Soutache.

Our old headboard.  Now you know what I'm talking about when I say our room is horrible and far from done!  Because our room is small and weird shaped, the bed can ONLY go in the room sideways which is why it looks so wide.  Just one of the annoying design challenges of this narrow condo.  If it wasn't for the nice master bathroom, I'd switch rooms!

I won't show you a full picture of the headboard since the actual bed and room leave much to be desired, but now that the rest of the house is almost done, I'll be able to focus my attention on our room!  I'm going to make big, dramatic window treatments to cover the window behind the bed which is why the headboard is so short on the wall.  We'll see how long that project takes me!

What do you think so far?

Textile Discount Warehouse, I love you.

Monday night, the husband and I headed over to Textile Discount Outlet to find fabric to reupholster our new vintage sofas.  We'd already struck out at Joann Fabrics (pricey, low selection) and Vouge (good prices, okay selection), but after reading the Yelp reviews of Textile Discount Warehouse, I had high hopes that we could finally find just the right fabric.  Boy am I glad we went.  The reviews were right!  The warehouse is a huge, three-story building FULL of all the fabric and sewing notions your heart desires.  Bolt after bolt.  Isle after isle.  Room after room.  The place is even bigger than I imagined.  Now I know why most Yelp reviewers recommended you take a couple hours just to look around.

There's a print for everyone at the warehouse!

The main floor is where you'll most likely find your fabric.  There are four big rooms of hanging bolts organized by type. They have all the fabric you can think of: ethnic prints, solids, spandex, lace, satin, animal prints, retro themes, etc.  As a bonus, almost all the fabric is 54" or 60" wide so you get even more for your money.  You'll also find multiple isles of ribbon, tie-backs, and lace.  One thing I'd suggest is that you bring small scissors.  I saw it mentioned in a review so I brought mine and I'm glad...the bolts are too big to carry around doing comparisons so I was able to easily snip off a small swatch instead.

Ribbons anyone?

Just one isle of fabric on the main floor.

The attic and basement are supposedly where you find even bigger discounts.  The bolts are on shelves so it takes a lot of digging to see what's there.  You'll definitely need patience and a few hours to find hidden gems here. I came across an awesome teal in the basement.  I hid it inside a bigger bolt so I can come back and get it later!  The basement also has loads of zippers, buckles, buttons, and even more ribbon!  I'm pretty sure they own stock in the ribbon business!  The attic had even more fabric and an awesome door original to the warehouse...super cool.

The awesome attic door.  I envision it in my dream loft one day!

Just some of the many buckles we found in the basement.

If you're in the market for fabric and you're in the Chicago area, you definitely need to hit up the warehouse.  Keep in mind it is a warehouse with concrete floors, open ceilings, and no frills.  It's actually cleaner than we expected.  If I have to give up decorative displays in order to get dirt cheap prices, I'm all for it!  We left with an awesome green fabric that was only $6.50/yard (the most expensive fabric we saw in our 2hr shopping session was $12.99).  Because we bought 15yards, we got a 10% discount which brought it down to $5.85/yd.  Our total for the night was $107 including the yard of grey wool fabric we bought.  We went into the reupholstering project expecting to pay about $350 at Joann...more if we missed the 50% off sale...so we're looking at a savings of at least $250.  AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went with green fabric for our couch.  It looks solid here, but it actually has a great texture.

For more pics, head over to our facebook page.

My New Sectional

I've always wanted a vintage sectional but they're hard to come by and expensive to reupholster.  Nonetheless, I kept searching.  Just when I thought my dreams of owning an awesome sectional (for a reasonable price) were gone, I finally got one this weekend for just $500!  While it's not a full sectional, it's close enough in my book!  To complete my dream, I'm building a corner piece that will connect the two sofas and give me the retro sectional I've always wanted!

As great as the original coral Naugahyde covers are, I'm recovering the couches in fabric so they're comfy for movie nights.  We tried Joann Fabrics but they're a little pricey for the amount of fabric we need and the selection isn't that great.  We also stopped by Vogue Fabrics over by the UIC campus.  They have super affordable fabrics and a good selection, especially for clothing.  Unfortunately we just couldn't find the right upholstery fabric to go with our color scheme.  Our next stop is Textile Discount Warehouse which is apparently THE place to go in Chicago and is literally a warehouse of amazingly discounted fabric.  I CAN'T WAIT TO GO!!!!!  Just look at all the fabric.

 {image via Yelp}

Aside from the couches, I also got two vintage chairs from the same seller for just $10.  They're in horrible shape right now but they'll look great once I'm finished fixing them up.  Keep a lookout, they'll probably end up in the Apt528 Store's soon to come furniture section!

Lampshade DIY

I wrote this post Monday but kept forgetting to publish it. Here goes!

One project that I actually completed this weekend is covering my lampshade with fabric. The old lampshade was blue like the wall and had peacocks on it. We tried buying a shade (pictured) but they were never the right size or color. So we decided to recover the original shade with a golden yellow fabric to match our new mustard yellow wall (pictures of the wall will be up shortly).

(Before)

(After)

At first, I messed up a bunch of fabric trying to cut it in straight pieces that just didn't fit the tapered shade. Then I googled around for a bit and found instructions on how to recover a lamp shade from About.com.

1. lay out old newspaper/paper bag
2. position the lampshade with the seam facing down on the edge of the paper
3. starting at the seam, roll the shade across the newspaper, tracing both the top and bottom edges as you roll
4. stop rolling when you get to the seam again
5. cut out your new template and use it as a guide to cut your fabric. Add 1" to the top and bottom
6. attach fabric to shade using adhesive
7. make small cuts at the top and bottom to help the fabric lie flat as you fold it underneath the shade

I had a hard time with the last step and would recommend NOT adding 1" to the fabric (step 5). Instead cut the fabric to the exact size of your template and then use ribbon to cover the top and bottom seams. For instructions on using ribbon, check out the Fat Orange Cat blog.

Weekend DIY: Pillow Shams

A couple weeks ago I posted pics of the pillow shams I made. I tried to come up with instructions to post, but it's hard for someone who doesn't know how to sew to tell someone how to sew! Instead, I found a few good websites to check out for DIY instructions.

DIY Pillow Shams:

• eHow.com
• HomeFurnish.com
• DigsMagazine.com

Apt528 Tip: No time (or skill) for sewing? Substitute No Sew, an iron-on adhesive that's great for creating hems. It costs about $5 for a double pack that should last for 2 or 3 shams. You can also try making the opening on the side, like a regular pillow case and use iron-on velcro to close the sham.

Wednesday Review: Sew Fisticated Discount Fabrics

With my living room chairs in desperate need of recovering, I made it my mission to find a fabric store. After several trips to the Stop and Shop on Morrissey Blvd. I noticed a sign for a Sew Fisticated Discount Fabrics down the road.

I read several reviews prior to going that said Sew Fisticated wasn't the best for a good, quality selection but that they sometimes have just the fabric you're looking for. Sounded okay to me, so I headed over.

The reviews were right. Many of the fabrics seemed to be dated and less trendy than what you'd find at a Jo-Ann Fabrics. Of course this was perfect for me since I was looking for something retro! The remnant section is pretty good and is a great place to find fabric for as low as 99 cents a yard.

But, everything has it's cons. While there were a few really neat fabrics, this is definitley not the place to go if you're looking for something in particular or are looking to special order. You definitley need an open mind for this place, otherwise you'll never be able to appreciate the true beauty of their newspaper-print cotton weave. They also don't carry fabric that looks like bricks, which is what one guy was requesting as we walked in. I think it was a blessing they didn't have what he was looking for...his project sounded horrible.

They also don't have a fancy store. It's a cheap brick building with cheap, faded carpet, cheap, low ceilings, and cheap displays. But if it comes down to it, I'd rather have a cheap building and low prices than a fancy boutique store with high prices to match!

All in all, I give this store 3 stars (out of 5). Interesting fabrics, good customer service, and no brick fabric...that's all I ask for in a fabric store!

Sew Fisticated Discount Fabrics
735 William T Morrissey Blvd
Dorchester, MA 02122
Phone: (617)825-2949
http://www.sewfisticated.com/

Sew Fisticated Discount Fabrics
Twin Cities PLZ
Somerville, MA 02143-3613
Phone: (617)625-7996
http://www.sewfisticated.com/

Extreme Livingroom Makeover, Part 7: Almost There!

From this: To this:

After weeks of searching for the perfect fabric to cover my chairs, I found just what I was looking for in the remnant section of the fabric store in Dorchester (more on that tomorrow). It's a retro fabric with several different shades of brown. The colors are nice and neutral and the pattern adds some texture without being too busy.


My first thought was to cover the whole chair in the brown fabric, but after doing a mockup, I decided it was a little too much brown. So I chose to do the top green and the bottom brown, but the green was too much of a contrast against the blue of the chair. Thankfully I had my trusty assistant Jerome there to pick out the blue which blends in with the chair while still adding a pop of color and intrest.


Perfect! Looking back at the old pics from when I first bought them, it's hard for me to believe these are the same chairs...they're so cute now! A dash of paint and a few yards of fabric can really go a long way!

I was apparently on a project high because I didn't stop at recovering the chairs...I went on to hang the new bamboo blinds (Kmart) and paint the pipes a nice shade of orange. Unfortunately, I ran out of steam before I could get to the cutains. I've decided to go with green, though I can't decide whether I want to do a simple fabric-covered cornice box or if I want actual curtains. I'll most likely do the cornice...why make more work if I don't have to?!


After that it's pillow making time. I'm not satisfied with the quality of some of the pillows I first made and I have some leftover fabric so, why not? Once the pillows and a couple odd jobs are done, the room will be officially FINISHED!!


That's right, finished! I can't wait. This room has been my pride and joy. I've found several other cute items that would like nice in the room, but I don't want to be one of those people who just doesn't know when to stop. They start with a few Christmas lights and the next thing you know there are inflatable snowglobes and giant Santa's covering their lawn. Tacky is NOT very becoming!

Of Course!

Just when I thought all hope was lost on fabric and decided to go with the cork designs, I stumble on fabric.com. They have a variety of fabrics at low discount prices. I might not need them anymore for the windows, but I'll definitley tap them for pillow fabric!