Upholstery Class Day Seven

The art of stretching fabric is indeed an art.  I learned how to drape the seat fabric onto the triple A cotton today, which is a “hope for the best on the first attempt” situation.  The idea is to drape the fabric while centering it to the mid-line of the chair both front and back the first time so a major adjustment is not needed after the drape.  Once draped, the hope is not to have to move the fabric around.  If so, it is likely that the movement would disrupt the underlying cotton, which is not ideal.  How did I do?  Not bad!  The front mid-line was off slightly, but the back mid-line was right on.  Keeping in mind that I did not want to disrupt the soft cotton underneath, I was careful to make only minor adjustments, which was all that was needed to match both mid-lines.

With the mid-lines matched, it was time to pin tack the fabric at the back and stretch the fabric to the front to pin tack. From there, I removed the back tacks to stretch again, then repeat the process at the front.  At the front, I stretched the fabric too much in one place, which created a “dip” in the fabric.  After correcting this “dip”, it was time to make cuts at the corners so the fabric would lay around the corners of the frame to be folded neatly around and pin tacked.