Arts and Craft Chair Project and My (Very) Old Singer

I love old things, especially those which follow the William Morris quote, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful" and both my old Singer sewing machine and my newly acquired Arts and Crafts chair live up to this.

This is my very first sewing machine, bought for the princely sum of £20, back when I turned 20 in 1978, and like the original machines bought on credit from my sister who I had to pay back at £5 a month.  I wonder how many of you know that Isaac Singer actually pioneered credit so that everyone could afford to buy a sewing machine?  I have made evening dresses, wedding dresses, cushions, baby clothes and quilts on this machine, and even now it is the machine that I prefer to use when I just have to sew up seams and put in zips as I sit at my kitchen table.  On another forum, there was a discussion about the age of our old Singers, so I googled the registration number and was delighted to discover this old war-horse was made in 1920... meaning my fave machine is 91 years old and still sewing beautifully... I love it.

Now, as you may be aware my firm Teachers TV closed on 29 April, so I thought to mark my redundancy I wanted something tangible and for a number of weeks I have lusted after an Arts and Crafts chair in a local antique shop which needed a little bit of TLC.  Although I did get a bit of a shock when I checked my credit card going through and the owner had mistakenly tapped in £50,000... I nearly had a heart attack before I started on it!

So I am going to learn how to replace the seat and re-weave the rushing in the seat... which is rather loose and certainly would not weight bear at the moment.

And I really like the stylised inlaid lilies, which may not be the most elegantly inlaid but to my eye make this an honest chair which will become more beautiful when I re-rush the seat.

So this is going to be my project for Handmade Monday which is run by Wendy - please go and take a look at the other projects being undertaken by the folk from the UK Crafts Forum.

I will update you when my rushes arrive and I start weaving.