Learning the tricks of the trade

TLC fabric designer, Brontey has been expanding her skills within The Loving Chair Company and learning the family trade of upholstery.

One day, I hope to upholster like Granny Celeste. I’ve been looking forward to getting into the upholstery side of our business for sometime as it allows me to be involved with a project from start to finish, seeing the whole process develop. It also helps me when designing my fabrics. I can experience first hand the difficulties of cutting the fabrics to fit the piece of furniture, whilst considering pattern repeats and size of the design. Upholstering furniture using my fabrics can be difficult as the patterns are often very intricate. This makes matching lines of symmetry seamlessly tricky.

 I think it’s important to keep traditional crafts like this alive, not least for succession planning in our business, but it allows the younger generation to learn and grow creatively and hopefully add something new to a traditional skill.

I’ve been stripping chairs for 12 months now, so I have gained a thorough understanding of how a chair is put together. I have upholstered a few seat pads and bar stools but my first complete piece was a fireplace chair for my Mum. I upholstered it from scratch, starting with a completely bare frame to the finished product. It took a lot more strength than I realised but looking at the chair now it has completely reformed.  I love seeing a piece of furniture change and transform like this, it is very satisfying. Being the first piece that I completed on my own I feel very connected to it. I can’t wait to get started on my next project, something a little more challenging!

Now that Brontey has been bitten by the upholstery bug, look out for more of her pieces coming soon.