Time-Out and Tea-Towels

I just got back from visiting my home town of Woodbridge in Suffolk, getting some fresh air, visiting my parents and catching up with some childhood girlfriends. It was a nice break from staring desperately at my computer screen whilst I rummage through online employment agencies, sending out the odd application and blindly hoping that my CV gets picked out from the pile of thousands that look just like mine. It's a bit of a depressing time in the UK right now, unemployment has hit its highest level in 17 years and I know that I'm not going to have my pick of jobs. Not to mention that I'm not really sure how to get employed in this country. It's been a long time. Converting my American resume into a British curriculum vitae has taken me longer than it should have, though to be honest, that's mostly because I spent ages messing around with different fonts and borders trying to make it look pretty.

I know, I know... why get a job when I'm going to be a brilliant upholsterer and make sad chairs feel happy again? Well, I do need capital to get started. And for that, I do need a job. Preferably one that will give me enough time and energy left over to begin work on my upholstery business. I have an appointment with a recruitment agency tomorrow, so that's a step in the right direction. Which leaves me plenty of time to daydream about which hand-tools I'm going to buy, and fabrics and piping, and all of the world weary chairs that are out there, looking for a new lease of life. I'm pretty excited to get started.

I'm also excited about my new sewing machine. It's not an industrial machine, which is ultimately what I will need, but a really sweet, basic Singer 337. It was built between 1964-65 and is still in perfect working order. It just needs a bit of a tune-up. The best bit about it is that it's not only a joy to look at (the colour is duck-egg blue!), but it only cost me £10 at the Moss End Car-Boot Sale in Bracknell. I'm going to use it for piping and making small cushions. Doesn't it look jolly?

Bit of a blue theme going on here. I swear it was unintentional.

And look, it has its own carrying case. In DUCK EGG BLUE!! I can tell you're jealous.

My lovely Singer 337. It's much more duck-eggy blue in real life. 

I am going to keep my eyes peeled for some vintage fabrics when I'm out and about, so that I can get my feet wet on my new machine by making some fun throw pillows. I did pick up a vintage tea-towel at another car-boot sale, and I think I'm going to turn that into a throw pillow. Something sort of like this:

Photo source found here

The really cool thing about the tea towel I found is that it's from my neck of the woods... well, almost... It's a souvenir tea-towel of an area known as the Norfolk Broads. Norfolk being the neighbouring county to my home county, Suffolk. Which isn't a big deal, unless you are my dad and have been engaged in a life-long rivalry between Norfolk's football team, Norwich City, and his home team, Ipswich Town.

It's just as well that my dad isn't a throw pillow sort of guy.

Awesome vintage tea-towel (£2.00)

Chair Love?

It's a bit of an ambiguous title, I'll admit. I don't have a fetish for inanimate objects, at least not in the same way that lady from San Fran who married the Eiffel Tower does, but I do have a special place in my heart reserved for chairs.

Why I love chairs

Beauty and function.
I just find them aesthetically pleasing. And you can sit on them. The basic rule for any design is “Form follows function.” If an object has to perform a certain function, its design must support that function. With chairs however, the sky's the limit.

http://www.gampermartino.com/projects/a-100-chairs-in-a-100-days/

History.
Each chair could tell a story, from a plastic chair in a school classroom to a King's throne. Chairs hold history, you can track time through their design. One of the most exciting things about carefully stripping a chair down to its frame is to find what lies underneath, whether it's the original fabric, the type of stuffing used, or carvings on the wood frame, all hidden by the new upholstery. It's a form of archaeology.

Why I want to upholster them

Upcycling.
When I moved to the United States, I arrived with only a backpack of clothes. When I moved into my first apartment, I had no furniture and barely any funds to buy anything new. A colleague at work told me I could have her old couch and a chair that she no longer used. The chair was an old Danish modern wooden chair, the cushions were falling apart and covered in cat hair, but the frame was solid. I removed the cushions and fell in love. I've dragged that chair frame around with me for twelve years, with every intention to do something fabulous with it. It's currently in storage, but watch this space...

That chair, and subsequent chairs I've gotten my hands on, have all sparked my interest in upcycling old furniture. I've always baulked at spending a lot of money on... well, anything, but in this throw-away culture, how wonderful is it to be able to reinvent something you already have? Freshen it up, restore it, upcycle it, whatever floats your boat. The pictures below are the before and after shots of a Victorian Balloon Back chair I upholstered at Tresithick last year. Transforming that chair restored my soul. But that's a story for another time.

Before

After

My Grandfathers.
Both my paternal and maternal Grandfathers were craftsmen.

Grandad Lewis, now retired, was a furniture designer and maker for a traditional English cabinet makers called R E H Kennedy. He travelled the world with his designs, one of which, a reproduction crib, is now a part of Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Massachusetts, USA.

Grandad Pearce, now deceased, owned a wrought iron works, based in the village of Bredfield, in Suffolk. You can see one of his pieces in the village here. His work also went all over the world, and he was commissioned on several occasions by the Royal Family.

I'm really proud of them. Both were true artisans of their generation, and I would like to carry on that tradition.

Me with Grandad Pearce

Grandad Lewis (standing), on the HMS Mauritius during WWII.