Jane & Myles

What lies beneath....

So far, I've had a few little surprises whilst exploring this little chair. Bought for only a couple of quid on Ebay, I should have realised it was to good to be true!

I knew it had a bit of a crack at the back which led to a bit of a wobbly movement, but this could be fixable - what I didn't know was that the wobble was something more.

Firstly though, I had fun ripping out the old nails of the nasty black leather that someone in more recent times had slapped on, and low and behold, underneath was the original Edwardian work. Under the black leather was the original stuffing (a mixture of straw and paper - pic 1) as well as the hessian base and hand-sewn edges. This was quite an exciting find as I'd just assumed this would have already been stripped by the last upholsterer, but luckily enough they had left it there, and completely intact!

These won't be re-used though, it seems the last owner had left the poor chair in the garden and in wet conditions, so it had totally lost its oomft... and was not a comfortable thing to sit on in its current state!

After stripping everything off, I then had to take the chair legs apart and fix where the crack was at the back. It was at this point I discovered one leg was longer than the other. No joke. This was an error that would have happened when the chair was manufactured - there was absolutely no sign that the leg had been cut shorter, and everything else on the frame was completely straight and at the correct angles.

So now I am going to have to do a bit of woodwork to get the little chair sorted out... which will take me more time than I was expecting! But it all adds to the project, and I have a feeling this will be something I will feel very proud of at the end of the day.

Chair of the Underground

I am starting another course tomorrow, and have purchased this little (rather dirty and dusty) Edwardian chair to refurbish and design the cover for. I have an idea to create a tube seat like our everyday edwardian London Underground, and I need your help to choose which design I will be embroidering in wool! I have done plenty of research and sifled it down to two ideas (as in the link).

At the moment this is the current favourite design.... but let's see!

William Morris footstool

This was a belated birthday present for my Nan (her birthday was in March) but I had trouble finishing it in time alongside working on the chair, and I also thought it was nicer to give it to her face-to-face when I went to Yorkshire for Easter. She absolutely loved it. My Nan has inspired me from a very young age to take up needlework, as well as more recently - upholstery. She has made so many things that we still have today - sewing boxes, piano chair, dressing table pouffe.... as well as clothing (my mother's wedding dress, my old dance dresses - all my Dad's clothing growing up!- see post here) It was nice to finally give something back to her as she was always making things for others. Now she is unable to sew because of her eyesight and fingers from diabetes, but she gets very excited to talk about her sewing days.

The bird was a William Morris design and the footstool itself is Victorian. It had a horrible cover from the 80s on it and underneath the original upholstery had been removed. One of my (not too distant) future projects is to re-upholster the sewing box she made my Mum in 70s - which was used as a scratching post by my cat (RIP) when I was growing up, and definitely needs re-covering!!

Edwardian chair

So happy to have finished this, this week! My little Edwardian chair was refurbished with a Jacobean hand embroidered cover (by me) and stuffed with fine horse hair. I used a beautiful blue and green trimming from VV Rouleaux to frame it nicely on the seat.
I've enjoyed this course so so much, I'll be sad to finish it!

Nan and Grandad

My Nan and Grandad married during World War II. They had very little, my Nan borrowed all the clothes and flowers for the day, which she had to give back at the end of the day. They spent the rest of their lives together, until my Grandad's passing.

Sew and so

I've been a bit rubbish updating my blog recently! But doesn't mean I haven't been hard at work with some sewing pieces... here are a few pieces I have been working on over the past 6 months: