Saturday 14 January 2012

14

Pull Up a Chair

Heartfelt apologies to those of you who thought the combination of moving furniture aimlessly around the house and Top Secretness meant there was a tenant in my uterus. Not so. I'm actually just shifting all of my business-related activities into my own room. For years I've been sewing in the living room after grabbing fabric and supplies from the spare room; unfortunately my desire to make things far outweigh my desire to tidy things away so there has been a more-or-less one way stream of sewing detritus into our family space. Expediency requires that I rectify this situation and contain the business to it's own room. I've been working on The Room for eons now, and after I get a few more items and do quite a bit more organising I'll share it. But before that, I need some help!

During living room operations, I sat on the couch and sewed with my machine on a small end table. Not so good for my (hunch) back, and when I switched between machines I had to switch them on the table. Beyond irritating. In New Room operations, I have a long table to accommodate several machines at a time. Which probably rules out this chair for lack of wheels:


But it's a pretty colour, and probably lightweight. Lack of cushioning might be a problem?

Height adjustable, wheeled and cushioned. But white and a bit boring.

All of the good points from the last chair, plus bonus orange points.

Top-runner for being patterned but requires more money than I'd like to spend and a physical trip to IKEA. Possibly a behemoth.

Please regale me with tales (the good, the bad and the ugly) of what you sit on when you sew. Debate the relative merits of arm-rests. Link to articles on web-MD that show that bedsores are the inevitable result of a lack of bum-cushioning. Keep it civil, people. I will delete comments if there are personal attacks about other people's stances on the neccesity of wheels.

14 comments:

  1. I sew on a rickity wooden chair. it's old and coming apart so if I'm wearing something that catches I have to put fabric on the chair. Highly recommend. <-lie
    For a while I was thinking one of those ball things you sit on would be fab, but then I thought about the pins and I abandoned that idea because I imagined that I'd be serging along and then pop the ball and in my startlement, lose a fingertip to the serger.
    I should get a real chair...
    I don't know about armrests, when I sew I tend to lean forwards. I think they may actually get in the way if you were working on something bit, like hemming a circle skirt or making curtains or eating a submarine sandwich.

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  2. I'm also upgrading soon to a proper sewing space so I've been doing a lot of thinking about similar puzzles. One thing I would say is, I've seen some great re-dos of boring old computer chairs. I'd recommend finding something that is comfortable (craigslist?) and then some of your favorite fabric and some spray paint fixes the aesthetics.

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  3. My sewing desk is at right angles to my other desk so I have a wheeled chair, one of the hideous classic computer chairs! I got it from my parents who were chucking it and I have plans to recover it to jazz it up a bit!

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  4. you know it makes sense, get a matchy chair....

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  5. I await your post on how to reupholster a chair as you can't find one in a fabric you like.

    I sew sitting on the floor, with my machine in front of me. It's not pleasant, so I certainly don't recommend that. Nor do I recommend a wheely chair with one broken wheel that now means it tilts at an angle. Before I used the floor I used that.

    I'm not being helpful at all, am I?

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  6. I sit on a dining room chair. It belongs to the set from my husbands Grandma. They originally had leather covers, she then covered over the leather with fabric which over the years has got damp+I'm fairly sure it is an enviromental issue but it't not that uncomfortable. Arms would get in the way for me and I think I'd want something upright...

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  7. Buy the Eames chair, I don't care if it is uncomfortable or impractical - it is beautiful and I want one. And that's all that counts.

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  8. I've just posted last week about my sewing room, can't wait to see yours once its finished.

    Also I can't wait to find out what the Top secretness is about cos that is driving me crazy!

    Anyway, I actually use that ikea chair in my sewing room. I find it very comfortable to sew in and sit in and scoot between my cutting table and sewing machine. I've had it for about 3 years now but its broken so i'm going to throw it out. The only reason I think its broken though is because I lean right over the side to turn the iron on out of laziness. The cost of replacing it does pain me greatly to the point that I possibly won't because I simply do not have 80 pounds xxx

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  9. I agree with Kate Eames all the way, I'm after an Eames soft pad to replace my prosaic desk chair. Lakeland Furniture do them at bargain prices.
    Wheels are useful for lazy arse moving from machine to machine. Wooly fabric attracts stray threads which can be annoying.
    SewBertie

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  10. I sew at the dining room table, so I sit on a bog standard dining room chair from Ikea with one of those seat pad cushions. It works fine for me, but then I don't have a snazzy special room, in which case I would probably buy a wheely chair so I could whizz about :)

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  11. The light blue Eames is so pretty. I'd get that one. But, I'd sit on what I do when sewing - a 70mm (I am very tall) exercise ball. It's comfy; it rolls and it keeps me from slouching and getting back pain. I love it, but it's not nearly as pretty as the Eames in light blue.

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  12. I have one of those computer operator chairs that my mother-in-law's work was chucking out. It's very adjustable but I have to say I never liked the armrests and eventually removed them. I haven't much sewing space and they kept getting in the way! Other than that the chair is great.

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  13. I have a padded folding chair from Walmart, frankly. No wheels because the room is carpeted, and no armrests because I swing myself 45 degrees to go from sewing machine to serger - sometimes I have to hop the chair over a few inches to reach the pedal. If I had your setup I'd go for wheels, and I love the orange chair.

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  14. I WAS using an adjustable desk/office chair that we got while living overseas, but I found that the arms were a nuisance and didn't allow me to get right up to the table I sew at. It has since become the chair in front of the computer.

    I'm currently using an old chair that matches the sewing table (an old kitchen table from our pre-kids days) but it isn't comfortable. This is only temporary until I find something I like that is adjustable, has a back and wheels. Ideally, though, I'll need to get one of those plastic mats that they have in offices so that I can scoot from machine to machine without getting up.

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