Big Wide Brown Sandals

Everyone's feet are different, but some feet are more "different" than others in a world where standardization and mass production are the norm. Very wide flat feet, for example, are hard to fit in standard shoe sizes, so they are good candidates for custom sandals. And since the particular feet in question belong to my husband, they are perfect candidates for my sandal experimentation.

Padding

I had tried, unsuccessfully, to find the padding that Michael of Island Sandals uses. Rob at Tandy suggested I try using a blue foam sleeping bag pad, which made sense to me, so I got one at REI and started hacking it up.

Once I had cut the strap holes and finished the top piece (Tandy Eco-Flo dye, Bison Brown followed by Carnauba Creme finish), I glued the blue foam to the top piece with Fast-bond 30 and wrapped the straps around the foam through the holes, as seen below:

I cut the sole pieces a bit oversized so I would have room for stitching and trimming later.

I'm working with quite thick leather again, like I did for my first pair of sandals: 13-15 oz. saddle skirting for the sole bottoms, with an extra layer for the heels. I used 6-7 oz. leather for the upper layer of the shoe, and 10-11 oz. leather for the straps (no way is he going to wear through these straps!). In hindsight, I should have used thinner leather for the straps, maybe 6-7 or 8-9 oz., because these straps are awfully thick, stiff, and bulky. Besides, the nice thing about the free-floating straps (that is, they are not permanently fastened to the sole anywhere so they can be infinitely adjusted) is that they are relatively easy to replace if they wear out or break.

I glued the top sole to the bottom sole (carefully not gluing where the straps are), then used a drill press with a small bit (around 1/16") to drill the holes around the edge. It worked pretty well, so long as I kept the straps out of the way! It was definitely easier than holding a power drill by hand like I did for my daughter's thong sandals.

Stitching by hand around the edges took a while, but I eventually finished them.

I like the wood-grained appearance of the hand-dyed leather. I got that by using a small paintbrush to apply the dye to the upper sole pieces.

Sole Bottoms

I glued a layer of SoleTech 3.5 onto the front part of the bottom, and glued a section of rubber chevron-patterned soling (also ordered from Louis Birns & Sons) onto the heels, as in the picture below:

When I took the picture above, my husband had already been wearing the sandals for a while (several months), so some wear is visible on the soles. The SoleTech 3.5 is a little too thin and dainty for this purpose. When he eventually wears all the way through it, I'll replace it with more of the chevron soling. Meanwhile, the sleeping-bag pad foam has held up pretty well so far and is still pretty resilient.

Lacey Too?

Lacey wants to know when I'll be making a pair of shoes for her, but she points out that she has much daintier little feet than my husband!

TV Chair Adventures -- Part 3

When I last wrote, I had given up the idea of trying to sew the leather pieces together to cover my chair. Gluing the leather on became the next obvious choice, but dealing with the contours was still giving me trouble. It wasn't until I was chatting with another artist (during a papier mache seminar I was attending), that I realized how to do it.

First, I removed the foam insulation tube from the chair form. I took the leather strip for the foam insulation tube and glued it onto the tube directly, with one long edge tucked into the slit of the tube and the other edge loose. Then I glued the big piece of leather directly onto the outside of the Deck-o-foam-covered Sonotube. Finally, I put the leather-covered insulation tube back around the edge of the leather-covered Sonotube and glued everything down (the loose edge of the leather on the insulation tube is glued to the inside of the Sonotube).

Here is how the back looks.


Cushions

Now that the outside of the chair is done, it's time to get back to work on the cushions.

For the round seat cushion, I cut three layers of 2-inch-thick, high-density polyurethane foam and stacked them inside the cover. I then stapled the cover very tightly onto one of the plywood circles.



For the back cushion, I cut out a piece of the scrap Sonotube so it would fit into the opening inside the insulation tube in the back of the chair.


I used the scraps of high-density foam left over from my denim-quilted dining room chairs to pad the back cushion. Since I wanted to contour the cushion to provide some lumbar support (opposite the direction of the Sonotube at the lower back area), it took some careful arranging!



Lacey shows off the careful use of duct tape to secure the foam scraps.


I wrapped a piece of the blue-green leather around the back assembly and fitted it in tightly, gluing down the leather flaps at the bottom to the inside of the main Sonotube piece. The piece of Sonotube inside the back cushion also helps to strengthen the back of the chair.


The seat cushion then got shoved up against the bottom of the back cushion. To fit the seat cushion properly against the back cushion, I needed to take it out, take off the seat cover, cut off some foam, and restaple the leather more loosely (besides, I didn't like the shiny stretched look of the tightly-stapled leather). I got it right eventually.


But Will It Hold My Weight?

The Sonotube is sturdy, but it's meant to meant to take outward-pushing stresses that cause tension around its circumference, not just downward along the axis of the tube. To deal with this, I want to make the plywood circles carry the weight, not the tube. I glued some wood pieces into the tube up against the top circle. Their job is to hold the plywood circles apart. I screwed the bottom circle into the wood pieces.

I added feet to the bottom circle so the Sonotube is suspended slightly above the floor and does not directly carry the weight of the chair's occupant.


Finished!

I had to be the first to try out the chair, and Lacey decided she had to join me!

Yes, it holds my weight just fine. I later tested it out with a much-heavier friend, and it held him with no trouble (he thought it was pretty comfy, so I had a hard time getting him out of it).

But Wait, There's More!

It would hardly be a proper TV chair without a matching ottoman, so I got a piece of 12-inch-diameter Quiktube and made one. I cut three lengths (9 inches plus two 7.5-inch pieces), and cut out thin sections out of the two short pieces so I could fit them inside the longer one to strengthen it (the 12-inch diameter tube is much thinner than the 18-inch-diameter Sonotube). I used the scraps of the leathers and cushion foam. I covered the outer tube with the black leather (no Deck-o-foam), and made the seat cushion the same way as the larger one, by stapling the leather over the foam onto a pre-cut plywood circle.

I glued wood pieces inside the tube between the plywood circles, and I screwed on the bottom plywood circle. Done!


Here's the set.


It's not the cheapest chair (it totaled about USD $250 for the set), but it's unique, small, comfortable, and my kids love it.

Getting to sit in my own chair without a fight: priceless.

A satisfied customer. It's just her size.

TV Chair Adventures -- Part 2

Part of what inspired me to make this chair was that I found an odd little piece of leather on one of my too-regular forays over to the local Tandy stores. They get odd lots of various upholstery leathers from tanning companies, and I'm always keeping my eyes open for nice bits in blues and greens that my kids might like. There was this one small piece (maybe 15 square feet) in a mottled blue-green with a shiny finish that caught my eye, and I nabbed it (it was one of a kind--none of the employees saw any others like it). Somehow I didn't manage to get a picture of the piece before I cut it up, but I started making a round cushion from it for the seat of the chair.


I found that stapling the pieces together worked better than pinning (in the seam allowance so holes won't show in the finished cushion). I got fewer stab wounds that way, too! I sewed the cushion sides on using heavy Gutermann polyester thread. This is pretty heavy and stiff leather (think of vinyl seats in a diner, and you'll be close), and I had a lot of trouble sewing through it on my machine (skipped stitches, etc., even with a "walking foot"). I got through the main seam around the cushion, but gave up sewing a second line around to stitch down the seam allowance. I ended up gluing that down.


Since I only had enough of the blue-green leather to cover the chair cushions, I got a huge black "Zora" hide from Tandy to cover the outside of the chair. This is beautiful soft matte garment leather. It's thin, a little stretchy, and it feels wonderful.


More Tubes: Foam Insulation
I find inspiration everywhere. I love to wander around hardware stores looking for tools and materials that might be good for projects. This time I found slit foam tubes that are used for insulating hot water pipes. They fit over the cut edge of the Sonotube and make a nice contour. Some of them even come with double-sided tape on the slit edges, so I was able to bend the foam around the edge of the chair and then pull out the plastic strip covering the adhesive. Here's how it looks on my sample piece.


Covering the Chair

My initial thought was that I would fit the leather over the chair with a big piece going around the Sonotube cylinder and a separate strip sewn onto the big piece so it would fit tightly over the contoured pipe insulation. So I cut it all out and pinned it together (the chair is upside down in this picture).


I sewed it all together (incurring many stab wounds in the process), put it on the chair, and it was a disaster. The contouring didn't work at all. This was one of those times where making a muslin version first would have been a good idea, but of course I just jumped in on sewing the leather, and in hindsight I think it would never have worked the way I had envisioned. I ripped out all of my seams, threw everything in a pile, and let the project sit stalled for a couple of weeks.

To be continued...

TV Chair Adventures -- Part 1

I need a special chair for my living room. My kids have both outgrown the teeny little wooden rocker they used to use to watch TV, as well as their cute little plastic chairs, and now they keep fighting over who gets to sit in MY favorite chair. My lovely tie-dyed couch is too far away from the TV for their viewing pleasure. Rather than all-out war, it's time to find a new solution.

I have some pretty specific requirements, since floor space is at a premium in my living room. After all, we have lots of bins of stuff, plus a consistent Wii-Fit user who wants enough space for the yoga mat and push-ups. So the new chair has to have a fairly small footprint. Also, I want a back for comfy TV watching, but the back and seat have to be fairly low so that anyone sitting on the tie-dyed couch behind it will still be able to see the TV. A "gamer's chair" would be a little too low--old people like me need to be able to get up from the chair. I searched for "low chair" on the Web, and I found some I'd love, but most of the ones I really liked were in the $2000 range (and while she may think she's worth it, do I really want Lacey taking over a $2000 chair?)!

My older daughter and I came up with a design that would fit the requirements without breaking the bank, and it would be uniquely ours.

Really Big Toilet Paper Tubes

It is possible to get really large heavy cardboard tubes that are used in construction work for pouring concrete posts and columns. Use "cardboard concrete form" as your search criteria. There are various makers such as Sonotube, Quikcrete, and Sakrete, but many contractors simply refer to them as Sonotube (similar to using the word "Kleenex" to refer to any type of facial tissue--bad for protecting brand trademarks, but everyone knows what you want). The big chain hardware stores (Home Depot, OSH) carry them in stock in up to 12 inches in diameter, but for the bigger ones (18, 24, 30, 36 inches in diameter), you need to go to a construction contractors' supply store. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I got some at Peninsula Building Materials Co. I got a 30-inch-long piece of 18-inch-diameter Sonotube there for USD $25.95 including tax ($9.50 per foot). I later got a 4-foot-long Quickcrete 12-inch-diameter tube at the local OSH for the matching ottoman.

Regular Old Toilet Paper Tubes

The kids and I spent a fun hour or two cutting up our large collection of used-up cardboard toilet paper tubes to make chair models.


After lots of time and discussion, we decided on the basic pattern to use for the chair (something in between the three middle models in the back row above).

We also did a fair amount of "design by comparison", where we sat in our existing chairs and measured how we fit in those chairs and where the contours were that made the chair comfortable or not.



We decided to make the seat platform about 12 inches from the floor. I made a full-size paper pattern to model the chair.


The pattern would later fit around the Sonotube so I could trace it for cutting.

Cutting the Sonotube

The large-diameter tubes such as my 18-inch-diameter tube are very thick (around 1/4-inch thick) cardboard (not corrugated), and they are quite hard to cut. I tried a number of (non-powered) things, but what worked the best for me was to use a utility knife (box cutter) to just stab through the cardboard. Later, for trimming edges and fine tuning, I would cut along my line as deeply as possible, peel off a layer of cardboard from the discarded side of the line, cut along the line again, peel off another layer, and so on, until I could finally cut directly through what was left.

I bought two pre-cut plywood circles (Closetmaid brand) that were 17.75 inches in diameter. I planned to use one inside the bottom edge to protect the Sonotube and the other as the seat platform.


While I was at the Peninsula Building Materials Co., I also bought a roll of Deck-o-foam, used for expansion joints in concrete, to cover the outside of the Sonotube. It's actually the same type of foam I used in my origami patterns, though a different shape (4 inches wide, half-an-inch thick, and 50-feet long for USD $20) and not rescued from a packing box.


I used the same FastBond 30 glue I currently use for making my sandals (I still have a lot left of the gallon I bought!).


I covered the entire outside surface of the tube with the Deck-o-foam.


Now I've got the basic structure of my chair.

Seat of the Pants

I'm not all that fussy about appearances, and my house is furnished in "Early American Hand-Me-Down, Kids-and-Hobbies". However, I had to do something about the dining room chairs when their covers started ripping from long wear. The table-and-chairs set was left to us by an old housemate when he moved out, and he had bought them at a garage sale before that. They are perfect for our casual lifestyle of feet on the furniture, food spilling, painting, leather working and sewing at the kitchen table. So they were already ugly, but the rips made them uncomfortable too.



In keeping with my waste-not-want-not leanings, and because my friends are still giving me their worn-out jeans (Yay! Keep it up!), the perfect material was obvious: recycled denim! I had also recently bought a book at a silent auction, "The New Sampler Quilt" by Diana Leone, and making sampler blocks for the chair covers seemed like a project I might be able to finish in a reasonable time (where "reasonable" is defined as "less time than the still-unfinished Jeans Circle Quilt from Hell").

The Jeans

For my six chairs, I used the legs of 10 pairs of adult jeans. Four pairs of varying colors (black, dark blue, medium blue, light blue) went to form the quilt blocks. Then I used one pair of legs for the surrounding sections on each chair.

The jeans pocket sections went to the middle school for a group making bags for a school project.

Finding the Grain

Quilt tops work better if the pieces are cut on the grain of the fabric. The grain of reused jeans isn't always obvious because of the diagonal pattern of the denim weave, so I found the grain by pulling off thread after thread (fraying the denim) until I had a straight edge I could work from. Fortunately I had plenty of excess on the jeans legs.


The Squares

Each chair has a different classic quilt square design. I did Wheel, Spools, Ohio Star, Monkey Wrench, King's X, and Card Trick (the hands-down favorite of the household--it's the one behind the dog).


I made templates from the patterns in the sampler book, traced with kids' washable markers and cut them out, and machine pieced them following the instructions in the book.

Once the squares were pieced, I sewed on the fabric from a pair of legs around the square to make the background. I washed the covers after that to get rid of the washable marker.


Quilting

I used batting left over from a previous project. For the quilt backing, I reused six small flannel receiving blankets (complete with Pooh or teddy bear pictures!) that I had left from when my two kids were newborn babies. This would never be visible, but it wouldn't hurt to have something sturdy but soft wrapped around the padding and the wooden seat bases.


I machine quilted the three layers "in the ditch" along the seam lines between the square design pieces so the sewing wouldn't be very visible.




House of Foam

Padding matters. I got a couple of different "chair-sized" pieces of padding at the local fabric/crafts store. These were two inches thick. One was Airtex High Density Foam. The other was Poly-Fil NU-Foam, which is a compressed polyester fiber pad. Unfortunately they were too small for my chairs, but my family sat on them for a week or so to try them out. I found they were too thick to fit well under the backs of the chairs, but they weren't firm enough. When we sat on them, we'd go right down to the wood surface beneath.

I went to a place called House of Foam in Palo Alto, CA. The proprietor suggested 1" thick high resilience (HR) foam, which he said is the usual one he sells for dining room chairs. It cost about $12 per chair (just slightly more than the same amount of the other padding types would have cost), but as his website says, "Generally the firmer the foam, the longer its firmness will last, and the more expensive it is." However, what I got from House of Foam was definitely the right stuff. They even cut it to shape and glued it onto the the chair seats for me while I ate lunch across the street, making it well worth it for me to go to such a specialty shop.


Putting It Together

I cut off the excess from the quilted covers, then I sprayed the covers with a coat of Scotchgard in the (probably vain) hope that the covers would stay cleaner longer. I used a staple gun to attach the cover over the foam and around to the bottom of the wooden seat pieces. Each seat was then attached to the chair legs and back with four screws, so that part was easy.


Here is the finished set of chairs.


New Beginning and the End

Interestingly, when I removed the previous covers from the wood, I found that these chairs had been recovered at least twice before (old staples and tacks, shreds of two other fabrics). It feels kind of nice to be carrying on a tradition of reuse, and not just throwing something away because it was old. I did, however, grit my teeth and throw out the old cotton padding and fabric covers. They had done their share of service.

Gratuitous Dog Pictures

I managed to sneak in one or two blog entries without dog pictures, but this entry required a lot of pictures, and Lacey now comes running if she even hears the camera turn on.

She's a big help!


She looks like this chair is made for her.


After all, since I have to let my kids sit on these chairs, why not the dog? The kids are often messier!