Ties Footstool Commission

     After seeing my upcycled upholstery work on my blog, I was contacted by a client asking if I could cover an old foot stool. We discussed possible fabrics and materials which I could use and she decided that ties would be the most effective and appropriate material to use.
     I first had to remove the broken top off of the stool using pliers, before I could re-cover it. In order to make the foot stool strong enough to be functional, I had to use a strong fabric as a base for the ties, which I attached with staples and tacks. The ties were then arranged in a weaved pattern and I experimented with what would be the strongest way to weave the ties to best fit the stool.
     Colour combinations also had to be considered as I had a lot of ties to choose from and I decided on a vivid, clashy colour scheme, appropriate for the nature of the garments. I used tacks and a hammer to attach the ties to the stool, for a strong hold in order to achieve the best finish. Once all of the ties were attached on one side I carefully checked the arrangement of the weaved pattern in order to make it as neat as possible, with the varying widths of tie.
     Overall I am pleased with how this piece turned out as it will now be a functional item with a vintage feel but a contemporary twist. Below are photos of the process and the finished foot stool.

 Sewed hems on base fabric

 Tacked base fabric to stool

 Tacked base fabric to stool

 Tacked ties to stool

 Tacked ties to stool

 Cut off excess ties

 Finished foot stool

 View of base

     Footstool and ties cushion with sofa

Tapestry Design

This is a design which I created for a tapestry and it was inspired by one seen on Kirsty Allsopp's homemade home

Harlequin Wallpaper

To complete my interior design range, I felt that it needed a coordinating wallpaper. The design for this was taken from my ties cushion, which I photographed, cropped and edited to separate the colours into layers. These were then printed onto acetate ready for screen printing. I chose to print one panel of wallpaper, 50cm by 250cm, with 11 colours and 2 or 3 layers of colour per diamond section. As screen printing is one of my preferred areas of art this was very enjoyable to do but it took me about 40 hours.
Below are photos of the process of screen printing my wallpaper panel.

 Ink on screen

 Day 1

 Day 2

 Day 3

Day 4 ~ Completed wallpaper panel

Foot Stool

This foot stool was re-covered using socks. In order to keep the harlequin theme, I plaited the socks as when lined up they form a diamond pattern. With the idea of feet ('foot' stool) in mind, I decided to stuff the socks for the legs of the stool, in order to create the effect of feet in a tip toe position. I feel that this was quite successful and the pun makes the piece more quirky.
Below are images of my foot stool.

 Close up of plaited detail

Finished foot stool

Jeanbag

For this beanbag I used diamond patchwork pieces which I cut out of old jeans. The jeans were collected from friends and I tried to use a variety of colours of denim, keeping the zips, pockets and buttons in the patchwork to make the jeans recognisable. I wanted to make the shape of the beanbag quirky and unique so I decided a doughnut shape was challenging and interesting. It is also very comfortable to sit in! Below are images of the completed beanbag.

 Finished beanbag

 Zip on back

Back of beanbag- patchwork detail

Ties Chair

To create this chair I removed the remaining broken wicker from an old chair and covered the seat with canvas. The canvas gave the seat part more strength so that when I stapled on the ties this would reduce the pressure on them. Initially I only covered the seat with ties but decided that the chair should be completely tied with ties. As this is part of my harlequin collection, I weaved the ties to create a harlequin pattern over the chair. The images show the front and back of my chair which is strong enough to still be functional. 

Chair with seat covered

 Seat close up

 Back of seat and canvas

 Fully covered chair

Back view

Magazine Edited Version

Here is the edited version of my magazine layout, with better proportions, no spelling mistakes and less of a bulk of text. I have also removed the plug socket from the showroom image.