Done a bit more to the larger chair. Covered the arms and seat with horsehair and covered that with calico. Very pleased with shape of arms and seat.  Seat could be firmer but never mind.

The base looks a bit spotty because I ran out of calico so used the dalmation fabric reversed – waste not want not and all that.

The smaller chair has had a large piece of foam glued in place for the seat and then some pieces of thinner foam glued around the sides so that there are no sharp edges or sudden changes in depth. All the foam was then covered in polyester wadding – like thin cotton wool – and this is also to try to mould the seat into one continuous shape rather than have lumps and bumps.

Then the top cover was cut and fitted and stapled/tacked into place. The edges are then trimmed off into the rebate (which runs all around the back and seat) with a stanley knife.

Finally you need something to cover the raw edges. There are quite a few options e.g. decorative nails placed close together, rope/cord, piping etc but because the chair is quite small and the rebate quite narrow I’ve decided to go for ‘gimp’ which is a decorative tape which is nailed or glued in place.

Just waiting for the postman now….

Done all I can in the conservatory right now so it’s back to the upholstery and here is the progress on the armchair…

The back is covered in horsehair which is nice and soft and stuffed in the loops that I’ve previously sown in. This is the final chance to shape the chair.

ever wondered what happened to all those barber shop sweepings?

The next step is so hard it makes your eyes bleed.  The back has to be deep buttoned in calico. As follows:

• Mark button positions on back.
• Cut piece of calico to cover back, allowing extra material to reach into the base of the button holes and for the diamond shaped folds between buttons.
• Stitch the buttons in as pieces of foam (markers for real buttons to appear later)
• Make the diamond pleats as you go.

The last step is a nighmare because each pleat you make pulls the previous one out of shape.

Finally you create pleats in the lower part of the stuffing to make the lower back shape, then tack-off all around.

I’m reasonably happy with the final result. It is much harder to do this in the calico, which is thin and flimsy, than in the final cover which will be thick and hold the folds easily. That’s the theory anyway…..

Been doing a little bit to the easy chair. The seat is stuffed and stitched and just needs finishing off with foam. Then a top coat of paint followed by the cover which has finally arrived having taken 17 days to make its way from Birmingham! No upholstery for a while as I have a damp conservatory to rebuild.

The chair seat has now been stuffed and covered.  Blind stitches have been used to build an edge around the back, seat and arm-scrolls of the chair and similar ‘top’ stitching has been used to sharpen the edge at the front of the seat and around the scrolls (but not around the back as that needs to have a gently rounded edge). All this stitching keeps the edges firm and defined – if you didn’t do it what you would get, after a bit of use, would be everything gradually softening and losing it’s shape and ending up like a bean bag. Hey – they’re in – why don’t I just do that?

The stuffing ties (big stitches that go right through the chair) have also been tightened hence the chair has a slight ‘mattress’ look about it at the moment.

One of the hardest parts of all this is to get everything symmetrical – if you were to draw a line down the centre of the chair, each half should be identical and that is very difficult to attain (for an amateur like me anyway).

You can’t really tell from the photo but the chair isn’t perfectly symmetrical. I’m hoping I can even things up at the next stage – top stuffing with horse hair.

This project gets harder as it goes along and mistakes made get more difficult to correct with each subsequent stage. After stuffing and covering the arms I am quite pleased – they have got a good shape and seem fairly equal – the hardest bit to get right. However, when I stuff the inside back and put the hessian in place for it, I realise that the arms don’t extend back quite far enough and there will be a gap.

arms covered but hessian should overlap the back more

There is a really tricky bit where the top of the arms meet the back and a wooden scroll – too much going on!

After tacking in place the back hessian and adjusting and adding stuffing several times, I back stitch it to the hessian of the arms. I then cut a small patch for each arm to cover the gap near the top of the arms and stitch that in place too.

side-on photo helps disguise any uneveness!

Above is the result so far. The arms look a bit more shaped than the back at the moment as they have stuffing ties in place. Back looks bloated but there is a lot more work to do yet and some of that will involve compression and shaping of the stuffing.

Think I could have chosen an easier project!

Next step is to do the base hessian that the first stuffing will be attached to. Due to a slight cock-up I attach this hessian in four pieces – seat, back and 2 arms. I then have to stitch the two arm sections to the back because the arms and back on this chair make a continuous surface, unlike a square chair where the arms would be distinct from the back. So THIS chair is harder  – not because it’s from oop North or because it supports Millwall but because everything for the arms and back will be worked separately but then stitched together in an invisible stylie.

If you’ve got very good eyesight you will also see that I’ve stitched in the large loops – known as ‘bridle ties’ that the first stuffing is stuffed under.

The webbing is attached and the springs have been sown in and strung together and to the frame.

The way the springs are lashed together looks a bit Heath Robinson but infact is quite clever – the springs are held very tightly  – they do not wobble from side to side. Also the tops of the springs are angled slightly to replicate the ‘dome’ shape of the finished seat and, although they are angled, when they are compressed they compress straight down and don’t collapse over sideways.

I’m not sure if the spring pattern I’ve chosen is good as the 2 books I have contradict each other over the number of springs to use. The original had 7 (my pattern uses only 5) but some of the springs had broken which I think might have been due to them being too close and clashing together.

original springs seen from below

I’m now waiting on materials (again) to carry on with project #1 so it’s back to project #3. Decided to have a go at French polishing because  the wood needs a good shine but as it’s a genuine antique I don’t want to use a modern polish like polyurethane. I always thought that French polishing could only be done by old geezers in aprons and high-waisted trousers who had been apprentices since just after the war but apparently it’s not that hard – especially if you are covering small areas like legs.

lower leg is French polished

All you have to do is buy the right polish – there are various shades of brown – let it down with meths (from Katherine’s drinks cabinet) and then apply quickly with a small brush. You then let it dry for about 15 mins, rub down with wet-and -dry paper and apply another coat. You do this at least 5 or 6 times (really) and eventually the shine begins to build up.  In the pic above you can see the light shimmering off the lower part of the leg that has been polished, vs the bit above which hasn’t. There are other, more complicated ways of doing it but this way works for me.

invisible man using a webbing stretcher

The next step is to apply webbing to the seat, back and arms. This is the foundation for everything else to come. The webbing on the seat must be stretched drum tight – this isn’t possible to do with bare hands so you use a special tool called, surprisingly, a webbing stretcher (most old tools have special names like ’shave hook’ or ‘mole grips’ so that builders can laugh at you when you don’t know what they’re called). The webbing also needs to be tacked in a special way but I’ll spare you that this time around.

If I wanted an easy life I could have stuck a piece of thick sponge on to the hessian background and then covered it. This is not a valuable antique so the stuffing doesn’t matter too much – it’s a matter of balancing cost and time vs final quality – sponge doesn’t last as long as traditional stuffings. But I’m using this chair for practice as much as anything else, hence the stuffed pad….and I’m now going to stitch round the pad to give it a firmer and more defined shape.

blind stitching

You will see some stitching around the edge of the pad. The purpose of this is to make the shape more defined and firmer and to help the pad keep it’s shape by holding the stuffing in place around the sides. You will also see some bigger stitches on the top of the pad and these also help to keep the stuffing in place. The side stitches are quite complicated and time consuming to do but good practice.

The next task is to cover with a softer ‘top stuffing’. Traditionally this would be horse hair but as this is expensive I choose to cover witha layer of 1/2 inch thick foam instead. This is attached using a spray-on glue.

New work bench!

Above you will see the seat with foam pad attached sitting on my lovely new work bench which is an antique in its own right and which I bought from an old lady on the other side of town and then wheeled on a sack-barrow, with the help of a friend, all the way to my house. It weighs about 85 tons.