Schnauzer Commission

I recently made a custom faux fur animal hide for this handsome Miniature Schnauzer named Gonzo and his owner.  It was really fun (and funny) to make, with those huge eyebrows and mustache-beard combo.

My own schnauzer-mix snoozing on the faux fur schnauzer.  At first, I tried using white faux fur that I could find locally for the eyebrows and mustache, but it looked really weird, so I ordered a small amount of this amazing, long white faux fur.

My freshly reupholstered child-sized recliner/ONE VERY LARGE DOG

So my 10 week long upholstery class with John Price at the Portside Arts Center is finally over!  And I walked out of that class with a mighy-fine looking child-sized recliner........... but I learned a lot!  Some of the most important things I learned were:

• All chairs, even the nicest, oldest antiques, are made incredibly poorly underneath the upholstery.  Things that should be symmetrical are not, there's probably a whole lot of wood putty holding it together, it's probably not made out of hardwood, sometimes the whole thing is held together only by staples, and even worse - sometimes cardboard is a really important part of the chair's underlying structure (like in mine... haha).  
• Removing tacks and staples from the frame of the chair is definitely the most time consuming, labor intensive part of upholstery.
• There's a kind of spray adhesive specifically for foam that works great and is just as good for your health as Super 77.  It's called Clearco 444.
• The books about upholstery are that I own (bought them off Amazon a couple of years ago) are pretty outdated.  No modern upholsters still weave webbing, they just use this synthetic burlap called Sagless instead.  It's a lot less work and much less time consuming.
• I learned about and got to use a lot of cool upholstery-specific tools: button covering machine and this weird thing that tacks down springs called a "clinch it".
• I learned about a couple of awesome websites from some of the other students in the class: Spoonflower (you can make your own custom fabric designs and get them printed, or buy from a huge amount of pre-made real-unique fabrics) and Van Dyke's Restorers (they sell nice hardware and a ton of replica parts)
• I now will be able to identify very very odd looking old upholstery tools at flea markets, and probably be able to get them for real cheap because nobody else will know what the hell they do.
• Pneumatic staple guns are so much more superior than hand held ones.
• I got more acquainted with my industrial sewing machine, as I sewed the arms at home
• I now know where to buy large and small quantities of upholstery fabric, sprints, cotton, foam, etc in Philadelphia (Quaker and Katz, respectively).
• It is possible to staple your finger (I didn't, but I saw it with happen to someone else with my own two eyes).

Of course I forgot to take a before picture... and process shots... but in the second to last photo you can see what the front of the back of the chair used to look like.  You can also see the fabric I used in better lighting.  I personally feel it looks MUCH better tufted and covered in tacky faux leather... 

birdcage style elevated dog bowl holder

My boyfriend and I went to this antique/a-little-too-expensive-only-because-they-only-have-high-quality-furniture "thrift" store a couple of months ago and he purchased a real nice Windsor birdcage chair similar to these:

I had never heard of these kinds of chairs before, but just the fact that the word "birdcage" was in the name stuck with me.

I've been talking about how I'm going to make an elevated dog bowl holder for quite a while now, which said boyfriend reminded me about quite a few times when I failed to actually make it for 2.5 months, so a couple of weekends ago I finally cracked down and made it.  It's made out of old (aka nicely warm colored) pine boards and 3/8" oak dowels which were shellacked and waxed.  It measures 16" x 8.5" x 10", and there was a great debate about whether or not it was too tall or not.  It may be a little too tall... but it's staying this way!  If anything, I'll just make sure my next dog is a couple inches taller...

I've bought hole saws before (a 2.5" and a 4" probably) and they aren't cheap.  A hole saw as big as those bowls probably would've cost me around $80.  I used a really interesting tool to cut those holes - an adjustable hole cutting drill bit (I'm sure that's not it's technical name) that JB probably got for a buck at a flea market.  It's made for metal but.... whatever wood and metal aren't all that different.  Here's a picture of a much cleaner one than the one I used:

Mason - my new/only/first dog!

 So I got my very first dog about one month ago!  I've only waited my entire life to get a dog!  And this is a real good one!  His favorite thing to do is lay down and be a couch potato.  He's a schnauzer mix and is 3 years old.  He's really unique looking and has a full beard and mane that get him lots of compliments.  I got him from Hopeful Hearts Dog Rescue in Wilmington, DE, but he is a rescue originally from Taiwan.  He lived in Taiwan up until about 6 months ago.  I gave Joan Chen, one of the people that runs Hopeful Hearts Rescue, this drawing of him the day I adopted him as a gift.

Mason drawing, 10" x 8", graphite on bristol paper, 2012.

This is a photo Joan took of Mason, her wire-haired rescue Daisy (who loved to stand on you so you were forced to give her pets because you couldn't get up), and myself.

 Mason with Alec, my boyfriend's mom's shepard/husky mix.

Now I get to vacuum up faux and real hair every week!