Kitchen Stool Makeover

I finally re-did our kitchen stools.  They have been living in the garage for the past 9 months or so, ever since Mark turned his back on Claire in the kitchen for 2 minutes and returned to find her standing on top of our kitchen island.  However, I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, we are mostly past that stage with Claire and I can now keep the stools at the island.

Here is a "before" shot of the stools - functional, but certainly not pretty.  I got them at a church rummage sale for $1.00 each.

I have been wanting to paint them for a while, but have been slightly challenged by the wicker type seat.

I ended up painting the wooden part of the stool (and some of the wicker seat as well) black.

Then I made a cover for the wicker part out of some old muslin I had.  Here is the final product:

Much better, isn't it?

For the cover, I cut a piece of muslin about 5-6" larger than the dimensions of the top of the seat.  I then cut a 4" square out of each corner of the muslin to accommodate the corners of the stool that stick out.  I did the same thing out of Pellon Fusible Fleece (978F) and then ironed the fusible fleece to the muslin, just to give the muslin a little padding and to make sure none of the black on the seat showed through the muslin.

I searched Google Images for a bird silhouette and found this one that I liked, then printed it onto iron on transfer paper and ironed it onto the face of the muslin.  It was a bit tricky getting the entire image to adhere to the muslin, unfortunately.  Thank God for Sharpie marker to fill in a few missing spots!

I then used a package of extra wide double fold bias tape.  I first sewed 8.5" pieces into each "corner" that was cut out, making a fold where it came to the corner.  Then, I sewed approx. a 22" piece of bias tape over each long straight edge, leaving the ends to serve as ties for the cover.

Here is a close-up of the corner of the cover once it is tied on the stool:

Voila - tie it on.  I had all the materials for this project, so it was free to me, but if you are attempting it from scratch you need the following things to cover 2 stools:

1/2 yard muslin, any width (over 36")
1/2 yard Pellon Fusible Fleece (Pellon 978F or any similar fusible padding)
1 package iron-on transfer paper (can get this at almost any hobby, craft, fabric or even large mass merchandiser in their craft section)
1 package extra wide double fold bias tape in the color of your choice
sewing machine

I did not take pictures of the steps of making the cover, I will try to take them when I make the 2nd cover and then post a more detailed tutorial.  They certainly aren't perfect, but they're much better than the original stools with the flaking white paint!