Decorating Ideas

[Rachel]

Have any of you decorated your wheelchair, walker, etc? Do you have any good decorating ideas to share? (Or even a picture of your decorated item!)

I'd like to decorate my wheelchair, but I'm struggling to come up with a good idea. I wish I could embroider. I think it would be fun to embroider a few scattered flowers on the upholstery. Any other suggestions?

Rachel

[Mrs. Burschman]

Rachel,

Have you tried embroidery? It's really not that difficult. I'm not good at sewing at all, but I love doing embroidery. My latest projects are baby bibs (they're small enough, they don't take so long.) I like it because I can do it while watching TV, then I don't feel like I'm accomplishing something!

I bet there are good guides online on how to get started, or you could ask at your local craft store if they know of anyone who could give you a few pointers.

Believe me! It's much easier than it looks!

Amy

[Rachel]

Amy,

Hmmm...maybe I should learn how to embroider. I could practice for a while, and then I could try it out on my old wheelchair. If it works and looks nice, then I could do my new chair. Would there be a way to tie off the floss and not have it show (since I wouldn't be able to tie it off on the underneath side of the fabric)?

Rachel

[Mrs. Burschman]

You'd probably have better luck making sortof a "slipcover" for the seat or back of your wheelchair if you don't want the stitches to show on the back. The added benefit of that is it would be washable!

Amy

[flop]

A good starting project for learning to embroider is to make bookmarks - they are small and quite quick, and you can try out all sorts of different patterns. They also make great home-made christmas presents too.

Flop

PS - I can do cross-stich but I haven't done any proper embroidery.

[flop]

One Christmas (2001) I was on crutches after an operation on my knee. For going to college I wound tinsel round the leg of each crutch and stuck it with sticky-tape.

Fine for Christmas, but it might look a bit odd by the middle of January!

[Mrs. Burschman]

Most of what I do is cross-stitch also. I guess I was using the terms interchangably!

Now I'll have to see what the difference is. Hmmm.

Amy

[flop]

Amy,

cross-stitch is usually done on a special fabric called aida which is woven with gaps in the threads to make tiny squares with holes at each corner. Most of the stitches are formed by a cross pattern of two stitches. If you use very large aida even fairly young children can learn to do cross-stitch with wool threaded on a blunt needle.

Classic embroidery is much more "free". It can be stiched on any sort of fabric, traditionally decorative items such as tablecloths and handkerchiefs were embroidered. There are lots of different types of stitches that can be combined to sew more solid pictures. Satin stitch and french knots are the only two that I ever learnt properly. Satin stitch uses long stitches very close together to "colour-in" solid areas, e.g. a petal on a flower.

Sorry, I'm not much good at describing sewing - it would be much easier to show you!

Flop

[Mrs. Burschman]

OK. I know exactly what you mean. I do both. The bibs I'm working on for my nephew are cross-stitch, but I just finished a baby blanket for my niece that was embroidery (lots of new babies to make stuff for!)

My niece's "mum" is English, but she married my brother and is a commercial pilot here. So I guess my niece is bi-continental!

Amy

[Sue]

Not very inventive but....................... My dad is in a wheelchair and I buy holiday decorated towels to put on the back of his chair. Spruces it up a little

((Hugs))

Sue

[Guest tearose]

Right now I use a seat cane and it is a black seat with bronze legs. It looks elegant as far as a seat cane can I suppose. I added a strap to carry it over my shoulder when I am feeling steady walking but need to have a seat anyway. Some people add a cushion.

When relapsed and in need of my walker, I did make something and it was cute and useful.

Of course it is good for walkers since they have a horizontal bar, and I suppose if a wheelchair has a bar you could adapt something like it tool.

Here is what I did...

I took some fabric about 24" wide and 36" long and folded it over so it was about 24" wide and 18" long. (Sew the edges if you don't want it to frey.) I made three pockets on the front half and then decorated the outside of the pockets. I got sticky back velcro and attached it on the inside of the fabric and over the bar and stuck the fabric together leaving the pockets exposed on the outside for my easy access. It was great for me to toss the phone and a note pad and paper in and then make my way to the kitchen or bathroom...I could grab a snack or magazine and use the pockets and make my way back to my sofa bed. I needed to keep my hands on the walker so the pouch with pockets was a great help.

tearose

[Rachel]

I like the idea of the fabric pouch on the walker. I don't have a walker right now, but I'll be getting one soon to help me get around the house. I can choose some nice fabric and ribbon and make a very useful decoration for my walker.