A New Chair for Twister

Have you ever watched the BBC series Lark Rise To Candleford?

It ran for 4 seasons finally ending in 2011 

but you can watch it now on Amazon or Netflix.  

The series is set in 19th century Oxfordshire England with wonderful character actors, many of whom you will recognize from your favorite Masterpiece Classics such as Downton Abbey.

As with all BBC productions, the costuming and sets are wonderful.  It is worth watching just for that but the semi autobiographical story lines are charming, funny and sometimes a little sad

 There is love and gossip

 jealousy and envy, all of which make the series great
(and the hats are over the top great!!!)

  what I enjoyed most were the characters of 

Twister and his wife Queenie

 

Twister is a lazy lovable curmudgeon who sells nuts for a living and when he's not sleeping, complaining or hiding from Queenie 

he drinks away the rent money

then stumbles home to sit in his chair by the fire

 With no money for rent,

 Queenie decides sell Twisters chair to the Tallyman for 2 pounds....

just enough to get them through the winter

 Twister of course is furious and his way of punishing Queenie

 is to sleep with his feet at the head of the bed

A very clever idea I would say!
The tiny bed totally cracks me up too

 Queenie feels terrible and vows to get the chair back

 but alas it is long gone

They reconcile and all is forgiven but Twister is without a chair and now must be content sitting on a wooden box....his head resting on Queenies shoulder 

sigh.....

 I love old hand sewn linens and mismatched scraps of fabric and decided to slipcover

 two modern wing chairs 

in a manner fitting lovable Twister and Queenie

My awesome fabric guru Wendy 

sent me about 6 old French grain sacks 

all with hand sewn mismatched patches...much like Twisters britches

The sacks were opened up and placed on the chairs 

in order show old monograming and all of the interesting vintage hand sewing
as you look at the chair from the front

We also used plain homespun and some additional striped fabric 

to in fill in areas where we needed larger pieces.

The fabric is very old cotton, flax and hemp
with simple dye and lots of texture

The seats are down with extra fill
for a large crown at the seat

The sipper runs down the center back and is covered with a large flap 

which I think makes sense with a rustic chair cover like this.
 Why try to hide the zipper?

The sacks and fabric were washed twice and I always use lots of fabric softener.
 Any areas that started to unravel were repaired or hand stitched prior to sewing all of the pieces together
 to make the final slipcovers

If you are a good seamstress you could probably do this project at home 

but I used an upholsterer that I love and trust 

and 

they know how crazy some of my projects have been, so nothing really throws them.

The chairs are one of the first things I designed for our Santa Barbara casa 

and I think they look right at home!

The chairs were made by Van Thiel & Company 

and can be found at a variety of retailers...without the slips of course

I'm enjoying this little old house much more than I thought I would.

The garden is a huge mess but coming along slowly so I will share what I can soon

Have a wonderful weekend...I can't believe its already May!

xx

kelley