Blog – Titter & Smirk

4th March 2021

Waste not, want…….what?!

So we are finally getting towards the end of our house reno (only a year behind schedule……..)

The final steps are the stairs, hallway and garden and Smirk finally gave in and cracked on once New Year was out of the way.

Some of the Victorian spindles are wrecked and broken so our lovely friend David turned us some lovely new ones to match the originals and we now have a bunch of spare broken spindles. So much love to David as we couldn’t find an exact match anywhere and really couldn’t face stripping the whole lot out….

A collection of broken stair spindles — Oh, what can we do with these broken spindles……..

Having stared and cogitated for a while and keeping in the spirit of low waste reno, upcycling and sustainable homewares we are going to make Candlesticks!

Obviously I guess, BUT and here is the thing; THEY WILL NOT BE CHIPPY!

( I mean I like chippy and farmhouse on other people, but it just isn’t me, I don’t wear it well somehow, probably because I am myself a bit loose and flaky so I need more of a tailored fancy finish to compensate)

Spindles having a bath in paint stripper.

I need something small and speedy to work on as I have currently limited room in the studio since Smirk has somewhat taken over (until tomorrow when I kick him out into the garden) we have plans – oh yes – we will be sipping G&T and feeling #SassyInStLeonards this summer whatever it takes; up to and including Smirk under the resulting ~~patio?deck?~~whatever you call it………

So far we are up to cutting up more bits of wood to create a base and I will post an update when they are done. In the meantime current status:

How many squares can I get out of this old bit of wood?

Back soon!

Titter signing off.

9th December 2020

You can never ever ever have too many chairs!

So recently Smirk made me count the number of chairs we have in our home. I was fairly sure it would be a perfectly reasonable number since I strongly believe you can never have too many chairs…..

Anyhoo.

I may have vastly underestimated and certainly I refused to count anymore after we hit 30.

Suffice to say that Smirk….smirked. Quite a lot. A fairly smuggy kind of a Smirk too.

This is by way of coming to the fact that I am no longer going to be keeping the loveliness pictured above for myself as planned (never seen a chair more suited for the occasional faint or fit of the vapours) and I thought it might be interesting to show you how we took her from the worn and frazzled state above to her current glorious incarnation ready for someone else to love and perch upon.

So she was in quite a state, part of an auction lot that had already been left behind twice-over. She was filthy and ragged and upholstered in a very ugly and faded thirties fabric.

First we had to strip the grime away – very carefully – you never know quite what you will find and we found treasure!

We think this is the original tapestry and really wanted to try to keep it but sadly the threads were rotting and there was no way the chair could have been used with this in place so we very gently washed (in a wool delicates fabric wash, by hand, and as briefly as possible) and have stored this away for the future. I may just keep this and frame it up as a memento since I have agreed to let go of the actual chair….. Smirk cannot object to that surely!

Underneath the tapestry we found the original hessian and horsehair upholstery.

We put this in a pillow case and put it through a wash cycle and it came up luvverly – the spring is all back and the noxious smells are forever gone.

Underneath all the layers of hessian and horsehair the webbing was rotten in places and once we’d removed that we could see that the back frame and legs were very loose and unlikely to take much use without repairing.

Smirk took over at that point and re-glued joints, replaced dowels and made her sound again.

We renewed the webbing and hessian and re-used the original horsehair and stuffing and then covered with fire retardant calico.

We chose a 100% cotton black velvet for the cover upholstery. I used a bleach resist technique to “print” the fabric with a design using bracken and horsetail –

This is such a satisfying process and I will do a separate post on this as it is one of my favourite pattern making techniques (although we are working on some digital prints for our own Titter & Smirk fabric so watch this space!) mainly because so much of it is unpredictable and the colour change can be so exciting.

7th March 2021

The Foundling Frog Prince

So I was out on a walk/run~~/stumble/poor attempt to model healthy choices~~ with C, my lovely next door neighbour, on Friday, and for the third time since November last year someone had left a piece of furniture in the street round the corner.

Now I am notorious for finding any excuse to stop running/walking/~~sweating in public~~ and C is used to my devious attempts at distraction so I had to squeal, beg and drag her to the other side of the road so I could examine the potential booty more closely.

Bootylicious thrifty thrills here:

I did a good old examine – missing or dodgy mismatched handles , scratched, burned, water damageded surface but generally intact, good solid lovely 2 drawer dresser. There is a piece missing from the back, where there was probably a mirror and upstand attached but nothing that cannot be gussied up.

I am a sucker for a finely turned ankle and double-drawn to anything with a barley twist so “yes, you are coming home with me” was an easy decision – even C forgave me for the pitstop since we made it round the rest of our circuit in double fast time so I could exhort Smirk to drive around to rescue (rule on morning walks with C – no phone so no opportunity to photograph or text him – rule now overturned in case of future happy findings)

The smasher is now in our hallway awaiting his fate – will post an update when the Frog Prince transformation is complete.

Oh, and today is Sunday, Smirk is cooking up full English ( I know, I know…..what will C say….? Well she won’t know if you don’t tell her, will she!) the sun is shining and there is nothing better than a pug in a sunbeam so until next time:

Titter signing off.