Replacement Umbrella for IKEA PS LÖMSK Chair

I found an umbrella-less Lomsk chair by the side of the road and decided it to refurbish it to act as a reading nook for my younger daughter, and divert such a serviceable piece of furniture from the dump. At the time of writing, the original chair can be found here: https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/ikea-ps-loemsk-swive... (In case you haven’t guessed, this Instructable is not affiliated with or endorsed by IKEA or any of its subsidiaries). In theory, any plastic egg chair without an umbrella that you find on the side of the road should be fine.

I really wouldn’t recommend this if you haven’t sewn before. I’m no tailor, but I’m comfortable around a sewing machine.

• 1 umbrella-less IKEA Lomsk Chair
• 1 coat hanger per rib, including ends I used 7
• 2-3 yards of broadcloth, depending on how tightly you cut and sew, + matching thread (contrasting would probably look awesome too).
• 4 inches of star tape, a single shoelace, ribbon, whatever you’d like. You could even use a short, hemmed strip of the above cloth.

Tools:

• 2 needlenose pliers (heavy, not jewelry)
• A vice really helps to straighten the coat hangers.
• A drill + bits to add additional holes
• Sewing machine
• Patience

1. Straighten each hanger
2. Bend into shape. Sorry I can’t be more specific here! I used the curvature of the chair as a guide. You’ll want a rough horseshoe shape with the wire tips going through the holes as pictured. I ended up drilling additional holes because the hangers bound pretty quickly if there were more than two per hole.
3. Finesse hanger shapes (particularly the top and bottom ones) to fit tightly and move freely.
4. Leave the final bend of the the tips (so that they don’t pop out with typical movement) until later, so that you can fit them through the channels you’ll sew in the next step.

1. Measure the length of the arc of the hangers.
2. Measure the length of the arc that your umbrella will be (following the arc of the masking tape in each step.
3. Divide that length into the number of panels you’ll need (# hangers -1) and then add 1 inch for the overlapping channel and 3/8ths of an inch for each hemline.
4. Create a paper pattern of the above length and width, and taper the ends to a point. Again, I free-handed this, imagine that you’re making a beach ball and hopefully you’ll get the idea.
5. Transfer the patter to your fabric the appropriate number of times and cut.
6. Hem both sides of each panel.

1. Overlap each panel by 1/2 inch and slowly pin them together, maintaining the channe width.
2. Sew the channels on each side, stopping just before the end so that you have a gap to insert the ribs through.
3. If you’re like me, the ends won’t all line up right, so trim them and stitch as necessary so it looks good.
4. Insert each rib, in order, into the frame. This is where the numbering is useful.

1. Reinsert each tip into its appropriate hole in the chair and bend a nice tight “U” so that they don’t pop out when your kid opens and closes it 10,000 times.
2. Hand-stitch your tie in place if you didn’t do it already and don’t want to completely disassemble the thing just for 30 stitches. Tie it as tight as possible without leaving it under strain.
3. Present it to your kid and film them opening and closing it 10,000 times so you can send it to your friends and parents.