Yellow Blossom Bottoms

Landon says that having a blog has made me much more productive, and he's right! So, if your looking for motivation to get things done, maybe you should start a blog!

This past weekend, Joann's was running a sale on upholstery fabric, so since I was in need of something to cover the bottoms of my Craig's list dining room chairs, I thought I should take a quick trip on Saturday.

As someone who doesn't sew, I feel pretty lost in the Joann's fabric section. This may sound ironic, since I spent many a times here as a child with my mother (who is a fabulous sewer), but I was usually looking at the pattern books and not paying too much attention to anything else. 

But, once arriving, I quickly made my way back to the upholstery section of Joann's and began looking around. 

If you'll remember, the colors of my dining room are greys and gold-ish yellows. At first glance at the Joann's selection, I was pretty disappointed. There were lots of gorgeous reds, blues and even greens, but when it came to yellow-patterned fabrics, the selection was really limited. 

The first possibility I saw was a more minimal fabric with cute birds. 

I'm not sure why I was drawn to this, because it had more green than I was looking for, but I thought with white chairs, it could really be unique. The only problem was it was a silky, hand-wash fabric. Given I can be a messy eater, I decided that would not be the best choice for the chairs.

So, I kept on looking and eventually stumbled upon the perfect fabric. It was a little more yellow than I had originally planned, but it also had grey in it. In addition, there is a hint of red, which is perfect because my everyday dishes are red.

I decided this was it and got ready to step up to the cutting counter get the appropriate amount when I realized I didn't know what that amount was. A minor detail, but I had neglected to measure the seat bottoms before leaving the house! Oops! Luckily, I called Landon and he graciously measured for me. It helped that when he took off the covering currently on the chair, their was another underneath. So he was able to measure the top cover and give me the dimensions over the phone. Then, because my mind doesn't work in yards, I carefully did my math to convert the sizes.

Because the fabric was only 45 inches wide, I calculated I needed 5.75 yards. (I asked the nice lady at Joann's to check my math, which she kindly did. She had also informed me the fabric was 45 inches wide ... that was not common knowledge to me.)  

All was well until she started rolling out the fabric, at which time we discovered the roll only had five yards. I thought all was for naught but then she asked if I wanted her to check another store. Yes!

Come to find out, another store about 20 minutes away had six yards! So, I hurried up to that store and bought all of it! Here it is up next to my paint sample. What do you think?

Now, the funny thing is that once I got home I asked Landon if he had a staple gun, to which he said, "No." So, guess what I'll be buying very soon!