Personal Home Project: The Yellow Chair

I have this old chair that was given to me ten years ago that was used in a window display from an old job. I don't know the history of it, I just know that it's old, hand carved, and stuffed with horse hair that collects on the floor under it any time someone dares to sit on it. Soon after getting the chair, I dug up this fantastic vintage Italian upholstery weight fabric made of silk and linen in bright yellow. It's a damask with unusual tropical animals, including a miscfhievous monkey and a cute Kookaburra. I upholstered the chair and added a great vintage French gimp in this color sommewhere between chartreuse and olive.

Sadly I didn't back the fabric, and after years of abuse from house guests, it was no longer visually appealing...

Fortunately I have just enough of the yellow fabric for one more run of upholstery. But I wanted a little more... I decided to do some tattoo inspired embroidery on the seat and back of the chair. I'm a huge fan of the tattoo artistry of Ashley Love, so I crated a design inspired by her bird cage tattoo and got to work.

Along with collecting vintage fabrics, I also collect vintage threads.  I selected some shiny rayon embroidery floss as well as some silk shoe thread from W. C. Thairlwall & Co. Inc., and mixed them with some brightly colored cotton embroidery floss.  The old Embroidery floss tends to twist and knot up as I work with it, but I absolutely love the result!

I'm about one-third of the way through this design. I'll post more photos as I go along. I'm pretty busy with a ton of different projects going on right now, but I'll do my best to get this one done before the end of October. Stay tuned!