Monday 25 April 2011

At last! An opportunity to get stuck into something creative....

The last project that I set the students filled me with terrible envy - I have a thing about chairs and have had a bit of a yearning to "do up" a few myself recently - thinking perhaps that if I was surrounded by loads I might get over it  - but alas, this was not the case, so not satisfied by watching my students develop their truly fabulous creations, I practically ran to the dump on the last day of term to see if there were any desirable examples that I might pick up, and aha, I was in luck...... A nominal amount later, and a touch of eyelash fluttering - it's not all down hill at forty - I squashed 4 of these lovelies into my car - and drove home, feeling rather pleased with myself and only faintly worried about how I was going to explain to Ivan (Mr Bicknell) why I was in possession of a whole load of chairs that weren't going to fit in our house..... errr - because I have an obsessive personality? actually, the plan is to sell them - but well, we'll see, my taste isn't necessarily everyone elses!

So here is how I filled up 6 whole days of my holiday!


What I paticularly liked about cleaning these up was peeling off the bits of spaghetti - I mean honestly - don't people know that when they take furniture to the dump, there is some sad muppet like me waiting in the wings to do it up? So for future ref, PLEASE - clean the crap off first!!


Unlike my dedicated students, I resorted to the electric sander - Sooo much easier! Thanks to my fab neighbour Roger!

 Next comes the primer...


Then the painting - after this I talked to them a bit to distress them a little (!), but I was so over excited to have finished the boring bit that I forgot to take a photo!


Fabric selection comes next, and in this I also need to stitch on some colour blocking to add interest - very now in the fashion world too!!!



At last! The screen printing - this is the best bit!


Seeing what works...



All done as far as the printing goes - now a bit of highlight stitching and I am on the home straight - thank god! I do not envy G and Lucinda who are doing six chairs each - good luck with that!

Ta daaaaa.......






And do you  know what the saddest part of this whole episode is (- and let's face it, if I were normal I would have laid about all week reading and enjoying the sunshine)? No? Well, for six days all I listened to was the new Glee album - tragic - but if Ivan (Mr Bicknell) will go off to Wales and leave me to my own devices.....!


2 comments:

  1. This does deserve a couple of comments... firstly they really are beautiful. Secondly are/have you managed to sell them and last but not least what an amazing collection of screen printing bits and bobs you have gathered at home, just a little jealous there i miss it alot! Hazel xxx

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  2. Ahh, thanks sweetie! They haven't even made it out of the dining room yet, so no, they have not been sold - I have a show in Guildford in June, so fingers crossed! And yes, oops, I do seem to have accumulated quite a collection of print paraphernalia now don't I?! And you know what, Alton misses you loads too! The private view is on Thursday 16th June, coming? G xxxxx

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