Clever Doris And Her Fine Upholstered Seat

Now whatever I said in previous posts about any found item being the most spectacularly smelliest thing of all time in the history of wombling, please disregard because this piece gets the award for being the smelliest even I've ever encountered.
It's a 1950s cocktail chair. And we all need a cocktail chair in our lives don't we? - for those times we spend partaking of a small cocktail libation of an evening...
This one was purchased for only £15, a fine example and a rare find due to the current popularity of mid century furniture - and especially at such a bargainous price.
I think the odour of wee devalued it somewhat...

 

Really Really Stained and Well Rank...

 
Deconstruction: deep breath in and armed with face mask, gloves and pliers I set about stripping the fabric off the piece. It was imperative that I kept the main pieces intact so that I could transfer the pattern shapes onto the new fabric.

 

Although enormously rancid, once I got into the main body of the piece I discovered, as thought, that the structure was solid and sound. At this stage I thought: "yikes, that's torn it".  I did however have a cunning plan in ensuring that I photographed each stage of the deconstruction process.

 

 

Even did a drawing/order of works whilst referring to a book in order to work out how to reconstruct it. All very technical and thought through you know...

 

 

 

Reconstruction: after removing the old fabric, tacks and flesh from my hands I decided to cover the exposed wood areas with wadding (actually the innards of a duvet), using a staplegun. This was in order to give the chair a softness so the frame won't eventually poke through the new fabric covering. I kept the original wool/horsehair padding intact. The staplegun I used was the 3rd version of 3 purchases, the first 2 being returned to the shop due to their ineffectiveness/being crap. Tip: "you buy cheap/you buy twice".

 

 

 

I roughly covered the chair in cotton calico, mainly so I could bring it indoors and continue working on it. I couldnt bear being exposed to the original padding any longer.

 

 

The chair is comprised of 4 fabric pieces so I cut a new pattern taken from the old fabric.The inner back panel was the first piece to be stretched and stapled onto the outer edges of the frame.

 

 

I machine stitched the contrast piping onto the top seat section.

 

 

 

The seat welt/skirt section is simply one long strip of fabric the circumference of the seat  which I machine stitched around the edges of the seat top (the piping is sandwiched between the two pieces).

 

  

 

The seam bulk was trimmed and clipped at a 45 degree angle.

 

 

 

The piped covering was stretched over the chair seat section and stapled to the underside frame. A second piece of piping was then stapled around the outer edges of the back section, trimming any remaining bulk in the seams.

 

 

 

At this point I flipped the chair over and repainted the legs in charcoal grey eggshell.

 

 

 

Mr Doris with his oversized needle...

 

After marking out the button positioning on the back and the seat it was at this point I called upon the services of Mr Doris who, not wanting to be left out of a good manly project, came up with a solution of how to affix them (16 of the blighters) using a ridiculously long needle and cord.

 

Buttons attached, I could then add the outer back section. I stapled the fabric along the top closely to the piping (right side to right side), flipped it over, and stapled it to the bottom underside frame. I handstitched down the sides, again close to the piping.

The old fingertips by this point were well and truly mashed...

 

 

 

Stapling a piece of hessian over the base; disguising all its aged innards.

 

 

 

Still life with another jolly teatowel footstool (lovingly made by Clever Doris for a friends birthday).

 

Cocktail perchance?

 

 

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Big Blousey Doris - Sewing...Again

 

Found this fabric lurking in the back of the Craft Cupboard - always loved it but never quite knew what to make from it, until now - another blouse, the pattern of which I shamelessly copied off my Biba blouse (I'm actually in the process of making version#3: I think I need to stop now). 

Is wearing a dragonfly print blouse one crazy step away from wearing a fleece jacket with wolves on it?

 

 

The Queen of Bias Binding?

 

 

 

And because making one garment in a week isn't enough, I ran up this lined linen shift dress.

 

Excuse the screen clash

 

 

My legacy: around 48,000 yards of this lining (+5billion zips in crazy random colours which I can never find use for and therefore annoyingly still have to buy a new one prior to each sewing project) handed down to me by my mother who used to sell such things on the markets decades ago. A good boil wash removed the smell of 1971.

 

 

Team Doris Turtle Power

Todays quality posting isn't strictly a crafty/makey/doey subject and therefore not particularly relevant to the general guff Clever Doris likes to harp on about, but one nonetheless I think may be of interest in the spirit of adventure, wonderment and getting stuff for free.
Whilst on a recent Team Doris Seaside Expedition to Runswick Bay on the Yorkshire Coast the Young Clevers, being at one with nature and all, happened upon the amazing sight of a fossilised turtle 1/2 mile down the beach. It was just sat there - all undiscovered and turtley-looking. Epic dialogue ensued:

Clever Norris: Mum look what I found
Clever Maurice: No I found it
CN: No I found it
CD: What is it?
CN: It's a tortoise
CD: 'Tisnt
CN: 'Tis too
CD: No way
CM: ...Way

We couldn't possibly leave it there for another grillion years. It needed to come back with us to its spiritual home of Leeds.
Moving it should be an easy enough task: we had a blue Ikea bag*. We were sorted.
All we needed now was a piece of rope, and I challenge anyone not to be able to find any rope on a beach. You can ALWAYS find rope on a beach. And find it we did, wedged between 2 giant rocks.
Now Mr Doris is a bit of a whizz with knots (well he has been on a Ray Mears Bushcraft course you know; a birthday present from CD, to which he responded more emotionally than the birth of his own children: what a Guy). Anyway armed with rope and Ikea bag we set about the task of transporting it from its zillion year old resting place. Bear in mind that it must've weighed about 75 kilos which is, according to Mr D, 3 times the manual handling limit recommended by H&S legislation (how we while away the evenings).
Basically it was bloody impossible to lift, even by the most hale and hearty of fillies or indeed the most manly of men (and that includes Manly Mick Mcmanly from Manchester).
However, beaten we would not be. This geological phenomenon was coming to Leeds on a tartan picnic blanket in the back of a mazda estate.

So with a bit of nifty wrapping and Ray Mears type knotting we embarked upon the task of transporting it along the beach and back to base. Easy in theory. Not in practice I hasten to add. The tide had just gone out, rendering the shore line very claggy/clay-ey and exceedingly pebbly. Over rocks and clay we proceeded in an Enormous Turnip story kind of way. CD pulling in a tug of war manner, Mr D  pushing, CN kicking rocks out of the way and CM texting his mates. Rugged stalwarts that we are, even us Clevers nearly threw the towel in. However ultimately we were not going to be beaten by this mere pebble so we continued on towards the slipway (we hadn't even thought through how the blazes we'd actually get Myrtle the turtle into the boot). 3 hours later we made it and with a bit of the old core strength and heave ho-ness we managed to hump it onto the blanket and swing it into the car.

Only in England would you find on a soggy beach on a soggy february 2 saxon peasants walking in 1 direction and a mad family dragging a stone in an Ikea bag the other way. And without either party batting an eyelid at each other. Although when asked by one other bloke what we had in the bag, Mr D replied "oh this, its only the mother in law" (other crap northern jokes are available) before continuing on our way...

2 days later we returned home to Leeds where Myrtle now happily resides on a tarmaced driveway. Research ensued whereby we disappointingly discovered, via the medium of the tinterweb, that Myrtle is not actually a fossilised turtle but a geological phenomonen known  as a Septarian Nodule and is formed from lumps of mudstone and limestone that have dried out, forming shrinkage cracks. Had we known that from the outset we may not have gone to all the effort. So I'm kind of glad we didn't know because we've convinced many a visitor passing through that it's actually a real fossilised turtle.

Sadly the Ikea bag was harmed during the completion of this mission...

Young Clever Norris, thinking Myrtle looked a bit incomplete, made it his personal mission on a subsequent seaside trip to find a stone shaped like a head...

 

Anyway we're sticking with the story of it being a fossilised turtle, which we intend to dine out on for years, adding to our list of 'remember whens'.
As evident in CD's previous posts: 'never let the truth get in the way of a good story'.



*Hey all you Ikea Marketers: how about an ad campaign themed on the subject of innovative uses for a blue Ikea bag? (other than carrying beach paraphernalia, laundry or the daily transporting of  wine bottles to the recycling plant). 
You can have that one on me - Clever Doris.
Just pay me in hot dogs.

Four Go On a Jolly Picnic Adventure

 

Living the dream - we can flatten some grass, us Clevers.

Now Mr Doris, being the eternal optimist and romanticist, has been and gone and gotten this idea into his head...
...the idea being of us four Clevers going out into the perfect English sunshine to sit in a meadow and enjoy a picnic out of a gingham lined picnic basket.

I think he has this image of him sporting tweed weekend attire whilst puffing on a pipe, me in a big skirty dress/bow in hair and the boys in tank tops, shorts and sunday-smart brown lace ups, playing cooperatively with sticks whilst observing the natural wonders of the riverside and saying things like "how queer" and "totally ripping".
And not a screen in sight.
Or even more unobtainable, perhaps, of a Jamie Oliver-style day on the beach with his impossibly groovy mates and their even more impossibly thin wives, with impossibly perfect children eagerly munching on such foodie delights as grilled aubergines smothered with anchovy emulsion.

Actually in reality we're all just shuffling along aren't we?; scratting around in the bottom of the freezer looking for something nourishing at the end of the day, to find a pie, previously made in a moment of alpha-mummy-forethought, to serve with gravy and veg, only to discover it's an apple pie which you'd forgotten to label. Or is that just me?

So being the dutiful thing I am, with my only ambition being to please him. That and to actually be able to see the bottom of the washing basket (I can only dream of aspiring to such dizzying ahievements), I happened upon a manky old £4.50 basket, resplendent with broken handles and dead spiders.
I wasn't going to buy a premade picnic hamper, no suree. Clever Doris likes to make life difficult.
This dream lifestyle was to be ours for the taking...

 

A bit broken (of course), and ready to be taken into the manly workshop: a mending task far too complex for the weak and feeble female.

The Clevers, normally great fans of a seasidey day out, always venture out in the opposite direction on a bank holiday. Being wedged in a car on the A64 on the frst hot day of the year is just too grim for words, as well as being ripe conditions for a divorce and/or social services intervention.
So we decided to travel only 3 miles away to a local rivery/meadowy/no-other-peoply little place we know. Because Mr Doris doesn't like other people...especially chip eating people in nylon sportswear.
But before any jollities could be had - there was the small matter of the picnic basket which needed to be made.
 

 

The fabric lining: it's got to be gingham hasn't it?

 

...and it just so happens that Clever Doris had some in The Craft Cupboard. Fabric was originally a 2nd hand £3 Laura Ashley curtain, chopped up to recover a chair with enough left over for a throw for Clever Maurices bed settee. Said throw now no longer required, so now to be recycled for the 4th time in the form of the picnic basket lining. Stealth recyling that is...

 

 

 

The inner lid was going to hold plates and cutlery so would need reinforcing with a piece of hardboard (cue Mr Doris). The inner base would require a box-shaped liner with straps and pockets to hold eating paraphernalia.

 

 

 

Lid reinforcer: after cutting a piece of fabric approx 5cm larger than the board, I machine stitched the pockets and straps onto the right side. The fabric was then glued (pva) to the board and wrapped over to the underside.

 

 

 

The covered board was handstitched to the lid using strong embroidery thread similar in colour to the basket, using the predrilled holes in the board (c/o Mr Doris).

 

 

 

Inner basket base: I cut a rectangle of fabric to size for the bottom (plus 1.5cm seam allowance), then stitched 4 strips together long enough to go around all 4 sides. After pressing open the seam allowances, the long strip was machine stitched to the 4 edges, creating a topless box.

 

 

 

All 4 corners must be trimmed at a 45 degree angle to reduce bulk.

 

 

 

Topless box shaped liner.

 

 

 

Elasicated corner strap for beakers.

 

 

Once the base liner was complete I proceeded to create a series of straps and pockets to hold essentials. This is quite an exciting part of the process as it gets you thinking about all the possibilites of things you can include. I bought melamine plates/beakers/bowls(lightweight), bone handled vintage cutlery, a small chopping board and miniature jars for salad dressing/salt & pepper. And the most essential piece of kit? - the all important corkscrew/bottle opener of course.

 

 

Base liner attached to inner using running stiches.

 

 

 

And that's kind of it really, except to say that there's still loads of space left for delicious things of deliciousness, bought from the local purveyor of delicious things. 

A picnic basket makes for a much more spiffing kind of picnic - we even had jolly awfully jolly good salad.

 

 

 

After brushing crumbs from their pullovers the Boy Clevers ventured down to the river to look for beavers and get into boyish scrapes while Clever Doris remained on the bank because she's a girl.