Sixth Class

Time flies.  I cannot believe it has already been six weeks, but here we are.  Last week I didn't feel like I did much in class, and in this class, even more so.  I attached muslin to the seat and tacked it to the back, I didn't have time to staple it.  First it is tacked every couple of inches on all 4 sides, only tapping the tacks halfway in.  Then you staple the front starting in the middle and working one way for a couple of inches, then from the middle toward the other side, the staples have to be end-to-end to ensure the most secure attachment.  Then you staple the back, same method.  The muslin is pulled hand tight and its purpose is to smooth out the foam (particularly on the edges).  The sides are stapled starting at the front of the chair and go toward the back.  Since the chair is wider in the front, this is particularly important as you are tightening the muslin as you go and eliminating wrinkles.  I did this wrong; I stapled in the middle and continued to the front then the back as I had done on the front and back faces of the chair.  He explained that the fabric's threads aren't parallel to the staple line due to the fact that the seat isn't square.  Thus if you staple toward the back of the chair where the seat is narrower, and you are trying to tighten and smooth out the muslin toward the front, you're stapling above the thread line of what you already stapled and it doesn't help.  If you start at the front, you're always stapling on or below the thread line and can eliminate the wrinkles.  It is hard to explain but if you see it up close, it makes sense.  The good thing was that I didn't have to pull out the staples.  The front of the muslin at the corners has to have a pleat in order to finish it, there is no way around it.  You won't feel it in the muslin, but the same thing happens with the finish fabric but every chair is similar (I will be inspecting other chairs to verify this!).  Pictures below, and hopefully next week you'll see some fabric!



Muslin stapled to 2" from the corners, still tacked at the corners.





Muslin stapled at the sides.




Muslin tacked to the back.