Stitching Chair

This has been an ongoing problem and Vince has about reached his limit with my inability to find a comfy stitching chair. In fact, if I ever mention wanting another chair again, he is not going to be happy.

Just hear me out . . you may or may not understand/agree with me and my reasoning. Yes, I should have known some of this stuff before buying what I bought but how do you know if you like a chair until you sit in it for hours and do what you’re going to do in that chair . . i.e., stitch!

The First Chair:

When we bought this house in 2020, the sellers had two recliners in the basement. They were nice, old style, big, comfy chairs. Since we were coming from a house without a basement, we didn’t have extra furniture. In fact, we had a love seat and recliner set in Texas that we had never loved so Vince sold it before he left Texas. So, we were happy to keep the recliners they no longer wanted.

After about a year, the chair Vince was sitting in was falling apart. I said . . you can take mine and I will get a new chair because I could use a better chair for stitching. OK. Great idea.

The Second Chair:

When we went to look for a new chair for me, I found a comfy electric recliner that rocked and swiveled. Perfect and, it WAS! We didn’t have Oscar yet. I was stitching in hand (no frame). Once I started using a frame, it was pretty much “not working” with the chair arms. I bought a Lowery stand and that worked a bit better. Then we got Oscar and when he started sitting in the chair with me, every move he made, every sneeze, every itch he scratched . . the chair moved. Have you ever tried hitting the hole on 40 count linen while riding a horse? OK . . neither have I but I’m guessing that’s about what it was like, though I can’t say for certain. Then, the chair decided it had a position it liked and it would turn on its own. I’d be sitting stitching and . . off we’d go, making about a quarter circle. We went to the furniture store, talked to them about it and they said “That’s what they do sometimes!” I also didn’t like the electric chair because it was slower going down than a hand operated chair. Oscar quickly learned exactly how long it took me to get the chair to a position where I could get up and retrieve whatever he had that he shouldn’t have had. I asked a girl down the street if she wanted it. They have a teen and a couple of pre-teens so I knew one of them would like that chair, if the parents didn’t want it. They gladly took it.

The Third Chair:

It was actually a loveseat. At that point, I decided I didn’t want a recliner but a loveseat with an ottoman would be perfect. Not so perfect!! I sat on it at the furniture store but when I got home and sat in it for hours, it wasn’t so great. First, the seat is too long and my knees/legs bend about 2″ before the edge of the loveseat. If I put the ottoman directly in front of the loveseat, I couldn’t get up without climbing onto the ottoman (standing!), then “landing” on the seat. At my age, I should NOT be doing that. If I pushed the ottoman far enough away from the seat that I could get up like a normal adult, the dogs fell through the crack. We ended up putting that in the small basement bedroom and it doesn’t get used.

The Fourth Chair:

It’s another loveseat. I decided to forget the ottoman idea and go back with a recliner so the loveseat has recliner foot part at both sides. This is a La-Z-Boy. I was pretty happy with it until about six months ago. One thing I wasn’t happy with that I should have realized before getting it . . it has a pull out handle (of sorts) that raises the feet but to put them down, you have to use your feet/legs to push it down and that’s kinda hard for me to do! Then, the cushions started turning to mush. The edges were not comfortable because it was around the edges of each cushion where it got mushy. The only way to sit comfortably is to sit right in the middle, straddling the center. Because there are two cushions, there’s a crack so I’ve been putting two bed pillows in the middle and sitting on those. And, since the reclining part is on both sides, if I’m sitting in the middle, I can’t use the recliner so I’m back to the ottoman, climb up on it in a standing position, then fall onto the pillows, then crawl to the edge of the ottoman to get up. We called the furniture store and they said they would send someone out. They also needed to get parts so Vince could replace broken parts on one of the recliners we bought since we got here. They didn’t. After about a month, Vince called them back. They said they would send someone out to look at the cushions. Another month, and someone came out. He said yes, the cushions need to be replaced. They will pick it up and take it and upholstery shop in Kansas and have the cushions redone. That was almost a month ago. We hadn’t heard back from them. Today we were out so we stopped by the furniture store so Vince could have an in person talk with the store owner. He was very nice and they will pick up the loveseat next Thursday.

The Fifth Chair:

Back to a recliner! Today while we were at the furniture store, I started looking at recliners. The salesman was very, very helpful. I told him I needed a chair that didn’t swivel, that wasn’t electric, didn’t have loosely woven fabric that the dogs could hook their nails into, the reclining part had to be solid – nothing open so the dogs could fall through. It needed to be wide enough that I could use the stitching stand. How wide is the stitching stand? I had no idea. We went back home, got the stitching stand, back to the furniture store. Perfect fit! The chair will be delivered next Thursday when they pick up the loveseat to be redone.

The Old Sofa:

My old sofa has been an ongoing issue. I bought the sofa 1992 so it’s now 33 years old. It’s a sleeper sofa and it is so heavy. I’m not sure if two strong men can even lift it. Every time we’ve moved, the movers have cursed that sofa.

Here’s a part of it. I had to crop it because Chad was about 7 and he’s standing there in his underwear. He would not be happy if I shared that. You can see that it’s terribly outdated though I’ve almost always had a slip cover on it. Vince said “It looks brand new” and it does because we’ve just never used it that much. In Kentucky and in MO the first time, it was on the main level and we were always in the basement. In Texas, it was too big for the family room in the house so it was in the sewing room. Here, it’s in the basement. One problem we had is that the dogs were jumping on the sofa and onto the back to get a better view and Oscar fell off onto the tile floor once so now I keep bins of linen stacked on the sofa so they can’t get on it. So, for us to use it as a sofa, we have to move 7 bins of linen. We never use it.

We’ve been thinking about getting rid of the sofa for a while but I wasn’t ready. I’m ready now.

The Plan:

The TV is on the south wall so Vince wants to sit facing the TV so his chair is facing south and sits on the north end of the room. If I put my chair anywhere except facing the same way, my magnifying light shines in his eyes when he’s watching TV. The east wall has a fireplace and two windows so there’s no real place to put furniture along that wall. That leaves the west wall, which is where the sofa has been and the love seat will be. Really, against the west wall, there’s about a 4′ path that has tile floor . . a hallway of sorts. The sofa sits on the carpet about 4′ from that wall and that’s where we will place the loveseat when we get it back.

I would like to find something to go behind the sofa that’s tall enough to keep the dogs from getting onto it and falling but not so tall as to look weird behind the loveseat. Any thoughts on that??

I sure hope the new chair works, and hope it all works out with the loveseat where the sofa was!