Saturday, July 7, 2018

Easy Wicker sofa - How I made it

For my Egg House, I needed a sofa of some kind. But the walls are round and the floor is not level. So a traditional sofa with square back and bottom wasn't going to work.
I had been looking at some wicker on etsy, but I wasn't interested in purchasing anything more for this project. So DIY to the rescue.

Materials
Oval woodsie (1 and 9/16 inches by 9/16 inch) or other wood for a seat, 3 carved toothpicks (I get mine at Cracker Barrel), 18 count cross-stitch fabric (mine is white), fabric for the seat, thin foam for the cushion (I used egg carton foam)
Tools

Tacky glue, white paint and brush, something to sand with (I use sanding block or sanding fabric, but emery board would work), scissors, tweezers

Process
I decided to use the oval woodsie as is, but could consider cutting it at the ends and reshaping with sanding block.
I cut a 2 inch by 1 and half inch piece of the canvas, but later after determining an approximate size to attach the woodsie, I was able to cut it closer to 1 inch tall.
I use my tweezers to pull at the threads of the canvas. I made sure to pull threads that go horizontally. I did this to two rows, but could be more, less or double rows, whatever strikes ones fancy, including removing portions and gluing the remaining threads in place.
This photo shows the two rows and after I have glued around the woodsie with 2 or 3 rows left to wrap around the bottom.
If I were planning to not add a cushion, I would recommend to paint the woodsie before gluing, then no paint would get on the wicker part.
Also the bottom opened row did not show later when I added the cushion, so it should have been glued a row or two offset.
To reduce bulk in gluing, I removed the horizontal threads from the bottom two rows that I overlapped the woodsie and glued to it.
When I use glue, I have a little glue. Using too much glue will require it to be removed and it may leave smudges, etc. I also use a toothpick or my needle tool to apply glue, not the bottle. That is unless using a tip bottle, which I could never keep the nozzle clean so don't use anymore.
Once the bottom was all glued down, I started curling back the sides. I just folded back a little at a time and added little dabs of glue as I went.


Then I looked at what to do with the top. Notice the rolls sides but flat top at the left.
To do this I started in the middle pulling the threads up, but not fully away. I tried to do so again, but since I didn't have any or enough glue, I ended up going with the roll towards the seat instead.
This photo shows before rolling on the left. The horizontal threads that I pulled out were glued in place, then the vertical threads glued over them rolling as gluing and holding with my fingers. I kept doing this until it would hold on it's own.
All finished with the back. Note threads could still be removed at this point. Just cut them at certain points before pulling on them. Gluing were cut for any that are left.
Next I cut my legs. I cut them a little too long. I cut them at the second notch from the bottom because it is what I liked. But I should have measured and accounted for adding a cushion. Since I hadn't decided to add the cushion yet I didn't realize they were too long. But later they were. However since this is for bunnies, I determined it was good enough.
Note in the pic I cut away the threads for the back legs and added the front legs at the sides of the threads. This way the leg is glued to both the wood seat and also the threads.
My next step was to make the cushion. I used a second woodsie as a pattern to cut the egg carton foam. I trimmed about 1/16th of an inch around the egg carton foam so that it wasn't overhanging the front and also to accommodate space for the fabric against the back.
I cut my fabric to give a good pattern on the seat. This meant I was a little tight on my edges to glue around, but I made it work. On the other side, I had more fabric and I just trimmed as needed.
I started with the cushion gluing the back of the fabric to the foam, then glued the foam to the woodsie with that to the back. Then I wrapped the fabric over the foam and the wood to the underneath as shown in the photo. To be neat at the edges, I had glued the sides to the foam, and this created a fold, so that is what was glued at the edge of the seat. I cut little flaps with the fabric since this curved, so the front of the seat cushion would be smooth. Gluing as I went.
This shows my decision to add a third front leg. The orignal plan for the back legs was to cut so I had the extra notches of the curved part of the toothpick. Since I wasn't measuring those were too short. So instead I cut off the tips of the toothpick for the back. I didn't worry too much about them standing straight as I wanted the sofa to fit in the egg house in a specific spot, so as they were drying, I did place in the house to position the legs.

If my legs in the back and front were too long and I wasn't pleased with their height, I could have removed them, cut them down and then re-glued. The main reason I wasn't measuring is it would be difficult to do so in this house. Also my floor isn't totally even, so they didn't need to be exact.

I painted the legs and realized I needed to do some sanding. This is ok, since it is good to paint and then sand and then add the second coat of paint. However, I should have sanded the legs before I glued them on. 
Here is my finished wicker sofa. This photo shows yellow as I didn't use a flash and it self corrected for so much blue. But it really is white, with cream colored fabric.
Here it is in the Egg House and can see why I might have made the legs shorter but also why the legs needed to be flexible when positioning before the glue dried.
I probably had room for a matching chair, however I wasn't prepared to make one.

1 comment:

The grandmommy said...

It came out so cute! I especially like that you used things you already had around.