It was LOVE at first sight… this Anthropologie chair made my heart race.

Unfortunately we’ve not one single spot for such a chair in Casa Anderson… it is FULL and DONE. Sad. But, I had already fallen in love… with that rustic, pieced together style, the top stitching and frayed edges reminiscent of  a man’s suit mid-construction, and the neutral fabrics of varied tones and textures.  I just couldn’t get this chair out of my mind and decided there must be something to be be made in that same style… something that I would have room for in my home.

So, with an idea in mind, I rifled through my scraps, spare fabrics and trims, and set aside burlaps of different shades,weights and textures along with some scraps of lace picked up at a flea market. All were washed and dried and cut into usable bits which I then pieced together to make one large cut of fabric. Then, the stitching began.  It was very simple… I used a giant needle, cotton string and brown embroidery thread to form large, crude and rough hand stitches.  In the end, I had a tablecloth.. rustic, frayed, patched together, top stitched and to me… just beautiful.  The pictures don’t do it justice…

Finished just yesterday, so…. Happy Valentines Day to me!   Now, will I be brave enough to serve dinner on it??

Well, yes I was!  Last night before Mr. MM left on a trip we enjoyed an early V-Day dinner, red wine and all.  The new tablecloth survived!  Here you can see part of our nutritious meal… my Paleo/Primal almond flour biscuits stuffed with a TINY bit of fresh mozzarella and proscuitto.  They were YUMMMMMMM…

 Hope your day is filled with LOVE!!

My flea market church pew, hand painted in an “Out of Africa” kind of a way by my Motorcycle Man, desperately needed a cushion.  It was hard and SO uncomfortable… a typical church pew trait.

Since this is a rustic piece of furniture, (here you can see up close what the hand painting looks like) I knew I wanted a rough, imperfect looking fabric and cushion to go with it.

The fabric part was easy… burlap, $2.99/yd!  But, I knew I wanted the cushion to be hand tufted and wasn’t so sure how to do that, so decided to head up to Alchemy Fine Living on Saturday for an upholstering lesson with the very talented Connie.  She quickly taught me everything I needed to know about putting the cushion together and even let me take a spin on her super fast industrial serger and sewing machines.  I left after 2 hours with this:  a plain old burlap cushion:

And, during the course of only one football game on Sunday, I was able to finish up the tufting and end up with this:

Beautifully hand tufted,(if I do say so myself…!) and SO comfy.  I was able to sit on the cushion during the second football game (and overtime…..)  I was not happy about the outcome of the game, buuutt… was thrilled with how the new cushion turned out!