Iron Back Chair in Bute tweed

An 1880's iron back armchair reupholstered in Bute tweed 2726.

Iron back chairs have to be reupholstered in the traditional way and take ages to complete but what a pleasure when they're finished. Because each stage of the back and arms have to be stitched to the next (hessian, hair, calico, topcover) and nothing can be tacked to the frame (back panel included) there is always a certain looseness and hand-stitched aspect to the finish - I love this. I don't think traditional reupholstery should be perfect - of course it should be done with great care and as much skill as is available and it should be done properly, with quality materials - but it should look handmade, because, well, it is.

As armchairs go this is a real beauty. Just look at the angle of the back legs, I can't take my eyes off it.

Once again the Bute tweed suits it perfectly - no pattern to interrupt the curves and buttoning but plenty of strong colours to keep things interesting and luxurious. Once again I have to thank my customer for choosing the right fabric, it makes it such a pleasure to do the work.
I just wish I knew how to take photographs...

...because this is the actual colour of the fabric.

Good job I chose upholstery and not photography eh?


This was a commission.

Ercol Settee in Melin Tregwynt Welsh wool

A 1960's Ercol 403 Settee with redesigned upholstery covered in Melin Tregwynt MiniMadison 100% wool

The settee had four shabby loose cushions and rotten webbing throughout, nothing was usable so it was a chance to redesign the upholstery. After consulting the Ercol archives the customer and I decided to go for a single bench seat but keep the original ‘floating back’ cushion design.

Originally the back cushions went behind the seat cushions but we switched this to stop then slipping. We also agreed on thicker back cushions for comfort. The back cushions are hand-stitched around the webbing and finished with a neat hand-stitched bottom edge. 

The fabric was chosen for its period geometry and the colour worked very well with the wood.

 Well smart.

This was a commission.

Wingback Armchair in Bute Tweed

A 1950's wingback armchair and footstool reupholstered in Bute tweed.

This customer has just moved into a nursing home and wanted to update her chintzy chair - now certainly the coolest piece of furniture in the place.

When I started this business I had ridiculous preconceptions about what type of fabric people would want, particularly elderly people. In truth it tends to be the younger generation who are the most conservative.

Well cool Mrs. Fox.

This was a commission.

Huge Footstool in Bute Tweed

A HUGE footstool redesigned and reupholstered in Bute tweed.

This was a big floppy thing from John Lewis called a daybed that wasn't big enough to sleep on but too high and floppy just to put your feet on. Now it's a massive footstool. Is that clear? It's a footstool, for your feet. Not for dogs or cups of tea, for feet, OK? Feet only.

Good. I'm glad we've got that sorted out.

This was a commission.

Bus Stop Chair at Banwen Pyrrdin

A reupholstered chair now available for bus travellers on the A4109 Inter-Valley Rd near Glynneath.

I swiped the chair from the local tip and recovered it in some vintage velvet damask (stripped from another chair) and edged in some Bute dogtooth offcuts.

One added toy goat and 'voila'.

Wingback armchair in Laura Ashley fabric

A large wingback armchair reupholstered in a Laura Ashley floral fabric

As I work so regularly with wool and often with geometric patterns, it is really enjoyable to make something with a random pattern-match.

 And flowers too - what about that?

Most refreshing.

This was a commission.

Child's Armchair in Wool Plaid

A 1960s child's oak armchair reupholstered in Abraham Moon & Son 100% wool

One of my neighbours brought this into the workshop in a shopping trolley that she was pulling behind a mobility scooter. This is certainly the coolest delivery method possible.

She brought the fabric too which is also rather cool isn't it? And the chair now looks very cool - too cool for the grandchildren for whom it was intended.

As I left her house she said to me "I've got a problem now haven't I? Everyone's going to be fighting over this, isn't it?"

I love doing this job.

Ercol Armchair and Ottoman

Here's an Ercol 'Piccolla' armchair and ottoman reupholstered in a zigzag weave.

The fabric is by Harlequin (who I never want to have to deal with again) and seems to me to be suspiciously reminiscent of the wildly expensive Missoni 'Kew' fabric...

Working with pattern like this on a curvy chair means you have to make decisions about where and when to match the pattern. These arm cushions with gathered pleats underneath meant I had to abandon my love of love of geometry and give in to the design. And that's never a bad thing.

This was a commission

Bench collaboration with Rebecca Connolly for Cambrian Wool

In addition to the Inside Out Chair I made for the Cambrian Wool Exhibition, I was asked to collaborate with handweaver Rebecca Connolly to use the fabric she would weave for the same project. After I'd seen her work I was delighted to accept and she asked me if we could make a simple bench to showcase her fabric. And here it is:

Rebecca was supplied the wool undyed by Cambrian Wool and sent on to Triskelion Yarn for dying. The colours were inspired by the domestic architecture in Reykjavik and the pattern inspired by traditional Icelandic folklore symbols. I loved this idea because it echoes the motifs found in traditional geometric Welsh wool patterns that I love to use in my work.

Rebecca wove the upholstery weight cloth on a traditional 8 shaft counter march floor loom.

The red section was designed specifically to form the front edge of the bench, giving it a deliberately non-symmetrical design.

For my part, I wanted to use waste materials from my business to make the bench, so a plywood offcut was reinforced with a hardwood beam on the base. I added some screw-in legs prised from a 1950's chest of drawers in a skip.

I then cut and stuck together waste foam offcuts from other projects for the seat. For this I use my trusty 1970's electric carving knife.

Here's the non-red side.

We're both very happy with the result so you're probably going to be seeing a few more of these on these pages in future.

For the time being you can see the bench among lots of other itmes at the Cambrian Wool Challenge Exhibition, stopping at Hay Festival, The London Welsh Centre, Llandovery Sheep Festival, Made by Hand Wales and Wonderwool Wales.

Drop-arm Sofa in Bute Tweed

A 1920's drop-arm sofa traditionally reupholstered in Bute Fabrics tweed 0404

I've got an excellent set of customers who I often refer to as 'brave' because I'm regularly surprised by the brightness and coolness of the fabrics they choose. After reupholstering this sofa I've changed my mind - you're not 'brave' to choose a strong colour like this, you're MAD if you don't.

Kermit once sang 'It's Not Easy Being Green', but what did he know? and anyway, look what happened to him.

This was a commission.

Tub chairs in plain linen

A pair of blonde tub chairs reupholstered in Vanessa Arbuthnot plain Linen.

 Not sure if these might be French? Certainly not British anyway.

Very smart eh?

This was a commission

'Inside Out' chair for Cambrian Wool Challenge

I was delighted to be selected for the Cambrian Wool Challenge with one of my traditionally upholstered 'Inside Out' chairs, and here it is

The 'inside out' concept came about because I hate having to cover up hand stitched upholstery, it takes so long to complete and then it’s just smoothed over with wadding. Most people have no idea what’s underneath the fabric of the chair they’re sitting on and certainly no idea how complicated it can be, so I started incorporating the top cover into the process, displaying a little bit of the inside on the outside

This was originally a cane chair came that from a skip. It was in poor repair with heavy woodworm in the seat but not in the rest of the frame (I thought it was mahogany but I now think it's another hardwood, rose maybe?).

I cleaned, stripped and French polished the wood and inlay, removed the cane and started reupholstery.

It's stuffed with vegetable fibre and stitched up to the first stuffing stage.

To preserve the shape of the edge-roll and to give the chair its inside-out look, the top cover is then stitched directly into the seat (after a layer of felt and skin wadding to give the seat shape and finish).

I had actually expected a flat-weave fabric rather than twill (because I didn't read the entry form properly) so was concerned that it was too light to take the heavy stitches in twine, but it worked great - the herringbone weave helping to judge the stitch length as accurately as I could.

And so here it is, another 'inside out' chair - a concept that one journalist called 'the Richard Rogers school of upholstery' in reference to the architect’s famous placement of building services (lifts, ducts, pipes, etc) on the outside of his buildings. 

I'll take that as a compliment.
  

This chair will be touring with the Cambrian Wool Challenge Exhibition, stopping at Hay Festival, The London Welsh Centre, Llandovery Sheep Festival, Made by Hand Wales and Wonderwool Wales.

Armchair and ottoman in Bute tweed

Here's a 1990's Laura Ashley armchair and ottoman reupholstered in Bute tweed.

Lots of furniture made in recent years is not worthy of the cost of reupholstery, but much of it is. This set was made by the Laura Ashley company in 1995. Twenty years later the foam cushion needed replacing and I made a new feather and poly mix for the back. Now covered in a very strong Bute tweed it's probably better than new.

The frame is beech and the sides are plywood. Lots of cheap new furniture from the likes of DFS is made of chipboard, and it will crumble and break in a few years, but plywood is super-strong and may well last better than some solid wood. If you're in any doubt, here's artist Tom Sach's "Love Letter to Plywood" film that explains so much better than I could.

So bring me your plywood furniture in its tired fabric and allow me to make it great again.

This was a commission

Dressing Stool in Welsh wool

Here's a Parker Knoll stool reupholstered in Melin Tregwynt fabrics - very nice.

This was a commission.

Wing-back armchair in Melin Tregwynt fabric

Large wing-back armchair reupholstered in Melin Tregwynt St.David's Cross Cassis Welsh wool.

Here's another customer with strong enough conviction to choose a full-on fabric from Melin Tregwynt. She wanted something that would make a statement and she certainly got it. Just look at it. I think the term is Eye Popping.

This fabric is a traditionally woven wool in an 18th century pattern based on Shaker weaves. It is 100% British (Welsh) and cool enough for Matthew Hilton (with SCP) - here it is on one of their Balzac chairs.

And because of a brave decision, this customer now has one in her living room.The only one of its kind anywhere.

I had it in the window of my showroom for a day before it was collected and a couple stopped the car and came in to ask me how much it was. 'Not for sale' I told them, 'but I could reupholster one of your chairs in the same fabric.'

'Hmmn,' they said, and went away chattering like sparrows.

This was a commission.