Furniture: a day bed fit for a diva! The upholstery.

Hello my friends,

Part two about the making of this day bed. You can find the first post on the day bed via this link.

Choosing a fabric to upholster this with was not so easy. I wanted it to be silk but I do not have a lot of silk lying around. Most of the fabrics I have collected for miniature projects so far are made of cotton.

In this post you will encounter the word "glue" an awful lot! please bear with me. I wish that I had learned to sew when I grew up. It would have come in handy here. I will look for a beginners course or something like that in the neighbourhood soon. I can't keep glueing my way through everey upholstery project, now can I! 

Of the silks that I do have only two colours were interesting to me. This olive green and this cool pink. Since there are a lot of greens in this room already, I did not want go with the green but opted for the cool pink. But only after changing my mind, and second guessing my decisions on this subjects a few times. 

It is not easy to see on the photo's but both silks are changeants. I believe that the term 'shot silk' is more comon in england and america than the french term for it. Shot (or changeant) silk is a fabric which is made up of silk woven from warp and weft yarns of two different colours producing an iridescent appearance. The pink silk I have here is mixed with blue threads, giving it this cool appearance. The weft of the green silk consist of black threads. 

The pink may not be an obvious choice but goes quite well (in my opninion) with the cream and crimson colours of the woodwork. Together with the occasional table this day bed will/should stand out against the other furniture in the room and against the room itself. Stand out, but hopefully in a complimentary way. 

Well, so far the theory. When I tested it in the room itself ... I did nót like it! Even the added carpet with pink and blue did not help to tie it all together. So I dropped the pink silk for this piece of furniture resorted to the green silk after all.

Time to stop debating the right colour silk to use and really get to work. First I need to cover the frame. When that is done I need to make and cover the back rest (and fix it onto the frame) of the day bed. finally I will have to make the bolster pillow.

I cut out a few pieces of card stock and glued them together to thicken it up a bit and to give the card more rigidity. Next were the  pieces needed for the sides of the back rest and after this I cut out two rectangular pieces to tie the side pieces together. All of these are made of the double layer of card stock. For the top curve this card stock would not work. Therefore I strenghtened it with a wooden dowel of the right thickness, cut to fit. 

Why make it out of card stock instead of wood, like the rest of the frame for this day bed? I have chosen to use cardboard here because essentially this is a trial piece. I might change it again in the future for a wooden structure. But if not, it should be strong enough to remain in tact for the coming years. 

When the glue was drying on the back rest I cut a piece of silk for the main seat. I glued the silk on on the underside of the card stock so that any glue bleeding through the silk would not be visible, and keep the visible side clean at the same time. When the fabrik was fastened to the card and the top sife was indeed not spoiled by seeped through glue, I glued it onto the wooden frame of the day bed

To  support the silk on the curvatious backrest I glued on a piece of card cut from a thin and flexible kitchen towel roll. This card should act as a lining to control the position of the silk when covering the back rest with it. It should make it easier to stick the silk onto the frame of the back rest.

Getting the silk on with glue without that glue bleeding through, was quite an ordeal. More so because I have not yet worked a lot with fabrics. So there is still a lot to learn here for me. After a few tries I have the backrest covered with clean silk on the front and back. 

The sides of the back rest were the trickiest for me to do. I cut small triangles out of the excess silk and glued the little flaps onto sides of the back rest as you can see in the picture below. Then, I cut out two more side panels and covered them both with silk. You will have guessed already that both sides with the glued on silk are then stuck together. This is neccesary ofcourse to hide the cut and glued silk from view, and gives the upholstery a clean look.

And when the covered panel is glued onto the side of the back rest you end up with something like you can see in the picture below. The side of the backrest on the left side, here hidden from view, is not yet finished here. I accidentally made two right sides by gluing both pieces of card same side up onto the silk before cutting out. 

I should have made one for each side instead by not letting them face the same direction. No problem however, I made a third one. While waiting for the glue to dry on the first side panel, I added a stippled border in crimson around the top of the day bed. I did this because I found it looking a bit bare in comparison to the decoration on the legs and stretchers of the day bed. 

But somehow I have turned the template the other way round again, because I glued it onto the silk the same side up as the other two... Grrr!!!  So three side panels facing right with silk glued on. But still not one panel to finish off the left side!

Before I would start throwing things at walls, it was time to stop and take the dogs for a relaxing long walk. That helped. Lol. That last piece, together with the bolster pillow will have to wait until after said relaxing walk!

After the walk with the dogs, which had taken me well over an hour. I tried again and was this third time lucky! looking at the daybed at this stage I am glad that I changed my plan and switched from the cool pink tot the dark green silk. 

Once the left facing side panel was in place it was time to work on the bolster pillow. There are many ways to make miniature (bolster pillows) I chose a quick and easy way I found in the book 'upholstered furniture in 1:12th scale', written by Janet Storey. This may not be the most realistic looking bolster possible, but it looks the part. We'll just have to imagine that it has been freshly filled with sheeps wool or goose down.

As pillow I simply used a piece of wooden dowel, cut to length. I rounded the corners with a file to make them less sharp. the downside of using a dowel is that the pillow is totally rigid. I want to make bolster cushions out of silk that I can fill with sand or a similar stuffing that will allow me to shape it as if it has been used a lot. But that will be for a future project. 

I glued on a piece of green silk on both ends and let them overlap the softened corners. When the glue was dry I cut away the excess. 

Once the excess material was cut away I took a piece of silk and turned back the material on the long side to get a clean line on the outside without the danger of fraying. once that had dried, I simply glued the fabric onto and around the dowel and fixed it in place with rubber bands to let the glue dry. When all had dried I ended up with a simple but adequate looking bolster pillow. 

I am not yet sure If I will make a soft matrass to put on top of the day bed. I may do so but am as yet still undecided on the matter. Because I quite like it as it is, but such a type of matress was often added so I think I should make one. Plenty of silk left over so that won't be the problem when I do decide to make a matress.

However, for now the day bed is complete. And in the picture below you can see how the set has turned out. Belle has left the book she is reading on the occasional table I see. I wonder what book it is that she is reading...

Huibrecht