Welcome back to my upholstery tales; with each session bringing me that much closer to the final covering…or so I keep telling myself! And yet there’s so much more to learn within the traditional method – under the strict tutor ledge of Ms Sarah B, there are no short cuts. You do things properly or not at all – simple as that.
So having temporary tacked the edges of hessian to the frame, onto my next challenge. Corners can present a tricky dilemma – how to achieve a nice neat look?
With a nifty cut and tuck…da-dah! Here it is, one lovely neat corner…
Once all sides and corners of the hessian have been neatly been tacked into place and I get the go ahead to ‘hammer home’ (music to my ears), and we’re onto stitching.
Upholstery twine at the ready, this step is all about making sure that the hog hair that’s been stuffed tightly inside stays obediently in place.
So that’s the centre secured, next onto the sides and my next lesson – how to do blind stitching…ahem! There’s system and you just have to remember! I can’t tell you how many times I fluffed this stage…
Remember remember, always twirl on the left and you go anti-clockwise…(it all goes wrong of course when I have to start off a new length of twine). But finally, I get the hang of it (sort of!)
It’s not the neatest row but at least I’m slowly making my way around the sides of the chair, methodically going into the stuffing, nearly exiting with the needle (instead blindly finding a way back) and coming straight back out ready to do the twirling bit, pulling to tighten and then onto the next stitch. And so on and so forth…
You just keep going till you have one row, then two…
By this stage my fingers are feeling like they’ve had a good work out, and I can’t stop spiking myself on the lethal double ended needle…
But all good things come to those who wait (ever so patiently!!) and so here we have it, three neat (ahem!) rows of twine. Roll on next week’s class…