Today was the first day of the first annual Renegade Craft Fair held in Los Angeles. It’s held in Chicago and Brooklyn and San Francisco and I barely heard about it making an appearance here. I wish I had applied. But today I snooped. I was in search of glass people. My people. And I found a few…well more than a few but not as many as I had expected or honestly had hoped for (makes me really wish I had applied). The work I did find was really cool and I plan to show off each artists’ work in the coming days. For more information on the Renegade Craft Fair check out their web site at http://www.renegadecraft.com/. After the show today the good people of etsy are hosting a little get together. I’m headed there now. More on that later…
Have you read?
How to Cross Stitch on a Chair
I love seeing different ways that cross stitch can be worked on unusual surfaces, from strainers to chain link fences and more. One slightly more common way to add cross stitch to your home without using cross stitch fabric is to stitch on a chair base.
Chairs that have woven ratan backs and/or bases are a marker of mid-century design through the 1970s and ’80s, but there are a lot of options currently for sale if you don’t want to hunt one down at a vintage store or garage sale. Because the open blocks are built into the furniture, it’s not that difficult to imagine what cross stitch will look like on the surface.
If you have a chair you want to stitch on, or you just want to be inspired by other people’s work, check out this tutorial from Bobo Stitch all about how to stitch on a chair base. The chair they used has a round base and a long oval piece on the back of the chair that had space for stitching. (They found it on eBay.)
The post walks you through all the tools you will need to be able to cover your chair with cross stitch. They actually used ribbon to do the stitching, but you could use wool yarn or even thick cotton yarn if you wanted.
It doesn’t look like a super difficult project but I can see how it might be tedious because it’s not as easy to stitch on a chair as it is to stitch on fabric. And if you are doing a set of chairs this won’t be a quick project, but it’s well worth the effort if you want to add a bit of color and funky boho style to your chairs.
Would you do this to a chair? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
[Photo: Bobo Stitch]