We have not started doing any upholstery or sewing in school yet. But being in a town with several furniture manufacturers, There is remnants of fabrics left over from factories in all the second hand stores at $3.00 a yard. I decided to start reupholstering the van seats for practice. I may have $80 into everything needed to do four seats.

I have this neat sewing machine that I cannot keep my hands off of.
   The first obvious step was to get a seat out and take it all apart.

    Then start cutting the seams apart to make a pattern.

    seemed easy enough.   Pretty soon I had a mess going.

    So...It was time to cut out the new pieces. The new pieces needed to be cemented to the foam backing.

    Not horribly hard to do. First piece sewed together quite easily. Taking my time to get it right. The speed will come.


Next was the backrest. Many new things to consider here. Remember, I am teaching myself. I can be meticulous about making sure things look right as they go together...but I am just learning.

Got the pieces all taken apart. Seemed important to lay them out so the way they go together can be easily sorted out.

Sewing them together was interesting. I actually find the sewing easy.  Backrest went together fairly easy. Lots of extra things the seat never had, but okay.
    I ended up with this.

   I used some special bonding paint for changing the color of plastic.

   Ended up with this
Forgot to take pictures of headrest going together....It is a special little challenge of its own. Finally done. The following pictures are of the finished one. The next one in line to be done sitting next to it. Sort of a before and after. Then first one back in the van. Keep in mind that there were no rips or major stains in seats. I just wanted to get started doing upholstery.

   

   I will finish the seats and also replace carpet and headliner. It will be my rolling billboard.

I have a few more sets of seats to do for friends. I told them if they bought material, I would do it for the practice. Then I will start charging to do seats.  I am pleased with the visual this will create. The seat looks every bit as good in person as it does in the pictures. my seams are straight. I really like my new sewing machine.