Several pillows were made to accompany our client’s family furniture after the design presentation: below, images from the production process. Pillows can make the look! These pillows and bolsters are all hand-stitched other than the basic forms.
CYLINDER BOLSTER
the striped silk used on the long
French Louis XVI Neoclassical Sofa circa 1760
shown above. The two matching bolsters were
created to add comfort to the open wooden
arm ends and help make the long sofa more comfortable and inviting.
The stuffed form was created, and the silk wrapped the form and was hand-stitched.
Going through the embroidered areas required muscle and pliers to
push and pull the needle through the layers.
We also discovered an anomaly in the silk pattern, and this is discussed below in the video. We had not checked the fabric for this aspect, as we’ve never had a good house have this kind of glitch, and unfortunately we had the last bit of fabric or we would have ordered more. In any case, we had to use what we had as we could get no more of the silk.
Creating the ends, below.
on the bolster ends, above!
In all cases, trims needed to be kept from unraveling during the application.
A casein-based glue is added to the areas that are prone to unraveling, shown right.
One completed bolster, below.
RECTANGULAR RUST PILLOW
Layers of passementerie one on top of another made these very difficult pillows to sew, especially as no forms could be used to stabilize the pillows as the forms would emboss the silk permanently.
Layers shown one on top of another in stills, above, and in the video, below.
If you love passementerie details, these pillows are beautiful, shown up close, last image above, and in the image below of the pillow top ready to be made into a pillow!
Note the beauty the layers of passementerie add in the
before and after of the pillow top, below.
SQUARE BEADED IVORY PILLOW
The ivory knotted eyelash silk taffeta made its way into several pillows, and the one below is the fanciest, using dangling beads all around. Because of the layers, this one was pinned, then basted, for each layer of passementerie.
Notes are added to each process photo, below,
if you run your mouse over the image.
The top of the pillow completed, below, and ready to become a pillow!
Many pillow images, below!
To see many images of sofas and loveseats, go here.
For pages on pillow ideas, go here.
To see our post on the design process, go here.
dkatiepowell@aol.com / mitchellrpowell@aol.com
503.970.2509 / 541.531.2383
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Kate–these are all so beautiful. But I did think it was all done on a machine. You and Mitchell are doing work that no one that I know does any more. Heck I can only think of one very good upholstery shop we had in town. The woman who owned it died several years ago and she was wonderful. No one has stepped up to fill her shoes. Shame.
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